My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time

by Liz Jensen

  ‘You did not solve it, then? I’m going to pack your bag for you now, Charlotte, while you try to concentrate on how the Professor’s mind works, for there I am sure lies the key to your riddle.’

  But how did his mind work, exactly? As Fru Jakobsen tutted & mother-henned around me, I groggily tried to picture the Professor as I most clearly remembered him. That man is surely paying the price for being so secretive now, I thought, stuck with a malarial fever on Marroquinta! My first sight of him had been in the Observatory: a tall gangling man with a flapping jacket & waistcoat, wind-milling his arms, & twitching all over with neurotic intensity. And then his telephone call, so recently: ‘the three products of human pain’. Blood, sweat & tears: all ingredients that came from the human body under duress. Pain had been the key, he had said. Human pain. Then dilute in tenparts of the great human ant–’. I pictured Professor Krak again, that first time we travelled on the underground. Attempting to calm me, he had offered me a swig from his hip-flask: I remember refusing, but he himself had taken a vast gulp & I recognized the distinctive smell of schnapps. What had he called it, then? A wonderful restorative? Thereafter I noted that the surreptitious quaffing of alcohol was quite a habit of the Professor’s, especially when his nerves were on edge …

  Suddenly I sat up so fast that my head spun. Good grief! What if, when the Professor first offered me a swig from his hip-flask, he had called it ‘the great human antidote’? Surely that was possible? It fitted, too, for had I not just used it as an antidote to my own pain, a means of numbing my own agony, & drowning my sorrows?

  ‘EUREKA! I have it! I have it by the nose!’ I scream, & am just in the process of gabbling the details of my discovery to Fru Jakobsen – (‘you clever girl, I knew you would solve the conundrum!’) – when a tinny blast of music sounds from my handbag.

  ‘Quick, Charlotte, the telephone!’ she cries. ‘Someone is calling you!’

  I delve into the bag, fish out the device & snap, ‘Yes, who is this?’ into the receiver. My brain is quite fizzing.

  ‘It is Rigmor Schwarb, in London. There is terrible news, Charlotte: I am so sorry.’

  O no! Josie! My heart was gripped with woozy panic. Rigmor Schwarb was a woman who had abandoned her own baby in front of an Oxfam shop: what madness had I committed, to entrust her with my lover’s precious babe!

  ‘The authorities. They came round,’ she said. ‘A policewoman & a social worker, who have been following you. The teachers at Josie’s kindergarten became suspicious some time ago, & contacted them. They interrogated Josie about you, & then they took her away!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes!’

  O, woe! The one thing that my lover had counted on, surely, when we were riven asunder, was that I would take care of his darling child – & I had failed him! O fool that I was! I burst into tears: the contrite Rigmor, too, was sobbing.

  ‘And they said that unless Fergus himself comes to get her, Josie will be fostered by someone on the list!’ she went on, when she had blown her nose noisily. ‘Georg Jakobsen has been trying to make them see reason, & has barely been off the telephone, giving assurances that Fergus will return, & that you are Josie’s official au pair, but they say that without written evidence to back it up, their hands are tied, & they have to follow protocol!’

  Oh, for Sataan.If I did not immediately soberize enough to conjure up a solution to this new predicament then we were quite undone!

  ‘Quick, let me speak to Georg,’ I tell the now bawling Rigmor.

  ‘Hello?’ comes Georg Jakobsen’s oddly calm voice.

  ‘Now listen carefully, Georg,’ I tell him. ‘If this doesn’t work, we will lose both Fergus & his daughter so I am counting on you!’

  ‘I’m all ears, Charlotte-pige?,’ replies the good Georg.

  ‘Can you have the Time Machine set up in Greenwich, on the meridian, tonight?’

  ‘It’s feasible,’ he said slowly. ‘Yes, I believe it can be accomplished.’

  ‘It has to be! Please do it, dear Herr Jakobsen, for my happiness depends on it, as does the future of all of us!’

  ‘Don’t worry yourself so much, my dear. I have spoken to my wife & she assures me all will be well.’

  What presumption!I thought, but said nothing for there was no time to lose: our flying-machine awaited us at the airport.

  ‘The other thing you must do,’ I told him (my thoughts now assembling themselves under one roof), ‘is to procure some rather particular ingredients, & have them all ready for me in a jar. Take note: two millilitres of human blood, another two of human tears, & another two of sweat, mixed with ten parts of schnapps. Trust me, Herr Jakobsen, but unlikely as it sounds, this is the secret catalysing liquid which will trigger the starting mechanism of the Time Machine. Please pack all that you & Helle wish to bring back to Denmark, for you are going home sooner than you think – but now I must bid you farewell as we must hasten to Kastrup Airport!’

  ‘Might you procure us some pickled herring on your way?’ he asked, still sounding calm. ‘We do miss good Danish sildover here: the English are quite ignorant of the subtleties of marinade. Oh, & some rémoulade?The departure lounge is one of the most sophisticated in Europe.’

  I had long suspected that, like his wife, Georg Jakobsen was in possession of a very cool head, but this was taking insouciance to extremes, it seemed: our futures hung in the balance, & he was thinking of herring & savoury dressings!

  Fru Jakobsen, equally nonchalant, buffed her nails all the way home on the flying-machine, while reading a magazine containing many photographs of caviare. Georg Jakobsen met us at the airport, most enthusiastic & full of pep, with a free flow of assurances that the new Time Machine was all poised & ready for activation, & their suitcases were in the boot: all that we need do now, before setting off once more for Denmark (O vertiginous thought!), was to convince an organization by the name of ‘Greenwich Social Services’ that I was indeed Josie’s legal guardian. And by the way, had we remembered his pickled herring?

  In the car heading for Greenwich Herr Jakobsen, who drove the vehicle with impressive assurance, began elaborating on the legal process of regaining custody of Josie which would involve providing proof of my identity & my employment as Josie’s au pair, & documentation which certified that Fergus was planning to return from his ‘business trip’ on a given date. ‘I’m afraid you may have been a little optimistic in hoping to secure Josie today, for we are likely to be looking at a long wrangle,’ he concluded, adjusting his seatbelt.

  ‘There will be no wrangling at all, dear Herr Jakobsen, if you & your wife will be good enough to humour me by doing precisely as I ask you,’ I countered. ‘For I have devised a plan.’

  Once we had arrived in Greenwich, Georg followed a set of side-streets until we came upon a squat red-brick barrack-like building with a high fence & security cameras at three different levels.

  ‘Georg, please be so good as to stay in our vehicle & keep on the alert, with the engine running,’ I instructed. ‘And when Helle & I come out with Josie be prepared for a quick getaway.’

  In the leaflet-strewn entrance hall, Helle Jakobsen & I noted a device by which one triggered a fire alarm, whose simple instructions indicated that one should ‘in case of emergency, break glass’. This, we whisperingly agreed, could be put to use in the latter stages of our rescue mission, but for now each had her own task – hurriedly agreed upon – to perform. What the chubby bespectacled girl at Reception made of Fru Jakobsen’s declaration – expressed in the most ornately polite Danish you could wish to hear – that we were planning to kidnap a child from the premises, & would appreciate her remaining as incompetent & flustered as possible for the duration of the operation, I do not know, for while Fru Jakobsen was thus fulfilling her role as decoy, I was surreptitiously slipping past the desk & embarking upon a frantic search of the building. Many of the empty rooms I happened upon were designated as quiet areas, conference rooms & places of worship but in a sidewing I was in l
uck, for hearing the sound of children’s voices, I followed a corridor that led me to a spacious dining hall in which I spied, through the door’s small window-pane, a tableful of twenty or so little ragamuffins of all colours, sexes & ages, fighting, throwing balled-up napkins at one another, & munching on a British snack of breadcrumbed meat shaped into dinosaurs, under the supervision of an immensely fat woman clad in tracksuit & trainers, whose main focus of interest seemed to be securing the children’s Jurassic leftovers by sliding them on to her own plate, where she snaffled them down as though she were dying of starvation. And there amongst the excitable throng of children, clad just as she was when I first clapped eyes on her, complete with mask, cape & gloves, was little Spiderman! Mentally, & with all the psychic energy I could muster, I exhorted her to look up, but she was too busy screwing her napkin into a small ball, ready to hurl at any child who attacked her, for it seemed there was a game going on that involved hair-tugging & missile-throwing, in which she was an active participant, if not a ringleader. I waved through the glass-paned door, but I could see no human eyes through the mask. I was just giving up hope when a flying napkin grazed the child’s head, causing her to swivel in my direction, whereupon I caught her attention at last. Quickly, I gestured ‘silence’, & that she must try to slip out & join me. Cottoning on immediately (for had not gesture been our very first means of communication?), she stood up & addressed the fat lady who, still munching, then noticed that Spiderman was clutching her little tisserkone& suddenly looking most piteous. The toilet! Our ingenious superhero had asked to be excused! The fat lady nodded her accord & continued her ruminant chewing, while Spiderman left the hall, closed the door behind her, & hurtled straight into my arms.

  Silently, we hugged one another until it hurt. Pulling off her mask & mussing her thick tangle of hair, I saw that her darling little face (so grown-up she seemed, all of a sudden!) was alight with relief.

  ‘Lottie!’ she cried. ‘I knew you or Dad would come and rescue me! Get me out of here! They make us sing “If You’re Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands” five times a day, & they tell you off if you won’t join in!’

  Upon which I impressed on her the need for concentration on the task ahead, if we wished to be reunited with her dad, who had become stuck in ‘the wee theme park’ & needed our help at once. She became most rigorously attentive, so I outlined the plan of action, confident that she would absorb it in all its detail, & follow my instructions without hesitation, for Miss Josefina Prudence Rosenberg McCrombie, much like her indomitable hero Spiderman, lacked not in courage, & could be counted upon to keep all her senses about her in a tight spot.

  Next I made use of the mobile telephone to send Fru Jakobsen a text signal, as we had agreed, indicating that she could terminate her one-sided Danish conversation with the receptionist & make a dignified exit, pausing only to set off the building’s alarm by breaking the safety glass in the entrance hall.

  Pandemonium!

  ‘Run!’ I cried, & Josie & I set off at high speed.

  The broken glass not only set several sirens a-wailing but also triggered an indoor rain-shower device that drenched us most thoroughly, but in the panic that ensued, we were able to make a most pleasingly nifty dash to freedom via a side-exit which led directly, as luck would have it, into the very car park where Georg & Helle Jakobsen now anxiously awaited us, whereupon I bade Georg apply the pedal to the metal,as the English expression goes.

  ‘For Fanden,Charlotte-pige, how did you manage that?’ he asked, dumbfounded.

  ‘Are you quite certain you want to know, skat?asked Helle Jakobsen, offering us all salt-lakridspastilles.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ he said, looking at his wife with a doubtful expression, ‘because one thing I do know about bureaucrats, be they in the past, the present or the future, is that they like their forms filled in, & their paperwork triple-stamped. Yet you emerged from that building, good ladies, without so much as an advice leaflet!’

  ‘Uha,’said Fru Jakobsen a moment later, for there were now sirens to be heard in the distance, ‘it seems that the authorities have been quicker off the mark than we bargained for.’ As we drove through the wrought-iron gateway of Greenwich Park & headed up the hill towards the Observatory through the dusk, the siren noise intensified behind us. Above us, darkness was falling, & seagulls slewed across the sky like shooting stars.

  ‘The Portakabins are round the back: I’m going to drive right up there & park in that woodland, as we’ve no time to lose,’ said Georg as he expertly turned the wheel & we began heading across the grass.

  ‘This is surely not allowed!’ cried Fru Jakobsen – to which Georg replied that indeed, it most certainly was not, but why should not bothof them become criminals at the end of their stay in England, & in any case, where we were headed, no one could reach us with an on-the-spot fine. The car crawled steeply uphill towards a collection of white box-like structures in the shadow of the lit-up Observatory, its satellite apparatus & its spherical ball now starkly silhouetted against the darkening sky.

  ‘Look!’ cried Josie. For there, high above us, hummed the laser line, pulsating its eerie green light. Herr-Jakobsen parked & we bundled out of our vehicle, each carrying a bulky Jakobsen suitcase, & rushed pell-mell towards the row of temporary cabins & toilets. Recognising our own bespoke one by virtue of the discreetly painted Danish flag it sported on its roof, Georg Jakobsen unpadlocked the door, & we all squashed tight inside Herr Dogger’s version of the Time Machine, ready for take-off.

  The sirens were growing ever louder as Herr Jakobsen shakily removed a jar from his pocket & filled the orb with the pinkish mixture it contained.

  ‘I hope I have mixed the quantities aright,’ he murmured, ‘and that Rigmor’s tears of penitence are of a sufficient standard. For if not, God help us! Now hold tight, everyone!’ he cried.

  And pulled the lever.

  Say what I might about Herr Dogger, I must grant him that he had improved on the original Time Machine, for our journey was swifter & smoother than any before, & it was almost pleasant to see the blurring images of rocks, stones, savannah, forests, deserts, waves, moon, stars, sun, & sea that whizzied around us like assorted clothes inside a tumble dryer as we hurtled through time.

  We landed softly enough, for the ground was clad in a thick eiderdown of white, white snow that sparkled in the sunshine. But O, the chill! In our haste, we had quite forgot the season, & Josie & I were wet to boot, after our encounter with the sprinkler system. For Fanden,we would freeze to death in minutes!

  ‘Take my jacket, Miss McCrombie!’ cried Herr Jakobsen, shedding it in a most gentlemanly manner & wrapping it tight over Josie’s little Spiderman cape – but I noted that her lips had already turned blue.

  ‘We must find warmth & shelter immediately, or we shall perish from frostbite!’ I cried, picturing our photographs on the front page of Politiken:four inexplicable corpses, one a child dressed as the Devil, frozen rigid as statues, discovered by Pastor Dahlberg & his new bride, in their snowy garden – if that was indeed where we found ourselves, for in principle this was where the Time-Sucker was located. Sure enough, there now came confirmation in the form of a loud & angry barking from a snow-clad kennel that stood by what I now recognized to be Fru Krak’s front porch.

  ‘The Alsatian guard-dog!’ I cried, remembering Franz’s journal. ‘The creature is attached by a chain, but he will alert them to our presence: we must swiftly away!’

  By now Georg had furnished himself with a sturdy beech-wood stick with which he bravely insisted he would keep the madly barking brute at bay while we ‘ladies’ ran past its kennel & out into the safety of the road.

  ‘Are you ready?’ cried Georg, upon which the dog – a huge brute with dangling testicles – reared into view, brandishing yellow teeth & a fanatical glare. ‘Then prepare to run for all you are worth, and do not look back until you are beyond the reach of its chain!’

  The dog had by now smelled conflict, & was leaping about,
tugging vigorously at its leash, so it was with shivering trepidation that we all set forth towards it – knowing, too, that at any moment the righteous Pastor & his invisible companion, the Holy Lord, along with his fine lady wife Fru Dahlberg/Krak/Bischen-Baschen, might appear at the doorway.

  The dog had been well coached in violence, for it did not hesitate to leap for Georg’s throat the very instant he approached to distract it, but Georg was quick on his feet, stepping jauntily out of the animal’s reach & waving his stick at it in a taunting fashion; snarling, the infuriated creature sank on its haunches & then proceeded to circle him threateningly, its chain pulled to the maximum, while Fru Jakobsen, Josie & I ran helter-skelter for safety. Once at the gate, & out of the dog’s reach, we turned – only to see that events had taken a frightening cast, for Georg, having had the upper hand, had lost it & was now struggling with the creature, which had grabbed one end of the stick in its teeth & was tugging at it madly, growling all the while! The valiant Georg looked momentarily hopeless, for it was evident that if he released his grip he would be weaponless, & the animal upon him, tearing his flesh & crunching his poor bones. Yet he could not ward the creature off for ever!

  ‘Georg, let go of the stick & run!’ shrieked Helle, but he shouted back that he could not, & we should press ahead & he would catch up with us!

  ‘No!’ Helle & I yelled in unison, but just as we did so, Georg, struggling desperately against the strength of the vicious canine, lost his footing & slipped on the icy path. No! The end was now nigh, for with a single mighty leap the maddened animal had hurled its whole weight at Georg & smacked into him, landing with a thud upon his torso. Helle screamed, & I gulped, & Spiderman prepared to attack, but then there fell a strange silence: it seemed that the impact of the two bodies had stunned both man & beast, for neither of them now moved. With a cry I ran towards Georg to drag the slumped creature off him, but just as I did so, two strong arms came from nowhere & grabbed me from behind.