by Jodi Taylor
I nodded and let myself out of the door.
I strolled slowly around the gallery, listening to the clamour down in the Hall. Historians and alcohol. Always a volatile mix.
Leon met me at the top of the stairs. ‘What’s in the box?’
‘Just a few last-minute things.’
‘Do you want me to take them with the rest?’
‘No, it’s OK. It’s not heavy.’
‘Are you coming with me?’
How to explain I wanted to leave as I arrived? Alone.
‘Actually, do you mind if I walk?’
He smiled and I realised I didn’t have to explain anything. ‘No, not at all. There isn’t much room in the car anyway. I’d probably have had to put you on the roof rack and I really don’t think we want to start all that again. I’ll see you in about half an hour.’
He disappeared. I stood for a moment, looking down into the Hall. I’d said my goodbyes. I didn’t want to do it all again. Never ruin a good exit. I turned away. I’d nip down the back stairs, come out in the car park, catch one last glimpse of the horses in their paddock, stroll around the side of the building, down the drive and into the village. A nice walk in the late afternoon sunshine, and then into our cottage for our first proper meal together.
It was a good feeling. I rested the box on top of my suddenly convenient bump and set off. Past Peterson’s office, past Wardrobe, and down the back stairs. There were memories everywhere. Over there was where Dr Dowson and Professor Rapson had nearly come to blows over the correct way to cook rabbit shit. Here was where Guthrie had led the charge against the Time Police. Down that corridor was the storeroom where Bitchface Barclay had told me what I’d done at Troy, and where she’d cruelly ripped apart Bear 2.0 and left him for me to find. I reached the back door, failed to open it one-handed, and set down my box. I got it open, wedged it with my foot because it was on a spring, awkwardly reached down for my box, and a voice I hadn’t heard for a long time said, ‘Good afternoon.’
Chapter Twenty-three
I was frozen, still bending to reach my box. This could not be happening. This was impossible. How could this be? I hadn’t seen or heard from him for so long that I’d forgotten all about him. I think we all had, and now, when I least expected it, here he was. Again.
I could feel the blood draining from my face. I was going to faint. I closed my eyes.
‘Careful,’ he said. ‘We don’t want any accidents, do we? Just take a moment. Breathe deeply. That’s it. Take your time.’
Not for one moment was I lulled by this consideration. My eyes flew open and I found myself looking down the barrel of some sort of gun.
He looked the same as ever. Thinning hair brushed back. His face was a little bonier, and the scars on his face looked older and whiter, but physically he looked just as he always did. Except for his expression. I’d seen him threatening, screaming, furious, desperate, cold and calculating, triumphant, but I’d never ever seen him calm, polite, and smiling. Personally, I preferred cold and calculating.
‘What do you want, Ronan?’
‘Yes, you see, I could make some hurtful remark about it being very obvious what I want, but we’d only start off on the wrong foot again, and the whole afternoon would just go straight down the tubes. Then one or other of us would end up either badly injured or dead, and it’s all so unnecessary when a little common courtesy will make this an enjoyable experience for both of us. Don’t you agree?’
‘What do you want?’
His expression didn’t change but his eyes did. Suddenly his gun was under my chin.
‘I told you. A little common courtesy.’
Keep him talking. Keep him here. All right, most of St Mary’s was in the Great Hall drinking their heads off without me – but surely, someone would be along in a minute. I knew this wasn’t an often-used back door but even so, surely Mr Strong would want to check his cleaning materials, or inspect something … or someone would …
‘If you would care to step through the door and turn to your left, please.’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘Yes, anticipating a little difficulty in this area, I’ve taken the precaution of bringing – this.’ I felt a prick against my neck.
‘What is that?’
‘A tranquiliser gun. Filled with weed killer from your very own supplies. Just through that door over there. How thoughtful. Off you go now.’
Slowly, very slowly, I inched out through the door. It was only as I stepped out into the car park that the full realisation dawned on me. There was no one to help me. The area was deserted. Leon had long gone. I was being kidnapped and no one would know. How long before Leon became worried? Quite some time – he’d think I was still here having a good gossip. Then he’d telephone St Mary’s and they’d look around, not find me and then they’d organise a full-scale search. They’d find the little box of possessions I’d carefully left behind for them to discover, but they wouldn’t find me. Because I wouldn’t be here. Because standing directly in front of me was a pod. Battered and scruffy, with half the casing blown off on one side, but a working pod nevertheless, and once I stepped inside I was lost. A sudden gust of wind felt cool on my face and I suddenly realised I was sweating.
I stood very still.
‘I do understand your natural reluctance, but I’m afraid you have very little choice in this matter. Walk into the pod, please.’
I rolled my eyes around but no one was in sight. No one at all. Other than a few birds and a car passing in the distance there was no sound, either. This was the barely used back of a building especially selected for its remote location.
He nudged me again and I realised I’d come to a halt. I started to think again. I was heavily pregnant. In every sense of the word. I weighed half a ton. If I just stood still, what could he do?
‘Stick you with weed killer, you idiot,’ said a voice in my head. ‘Remember the standard operating procedure. Keep your head down, your mouth shut and await rescue.’
I tried to delay. ‘What do you want?’
‘I’ll tell you once you’re inside. You really shouldn’t be standing about in your condition. Go on. In you go.’
He was still calm. Still polite. If I didn’t know who he was, I wouldn’t be concerned at all. I did know who he was, however, and I was very concerned. Actually, I was so terrified I could barely move my legs. This was very, very bad. I was in a lot of trouble here. More trouble than I’d been in for a long time. No – more trouble than I’d ever been in before, because now it wasn’t just me at risk.
I’d been hot – now, suddenly, I grew very cold.
He pushed me in the back and I took a reluctant half step forwards. He pushed again. I took another, praying, not just to the god of historians, but any benevolent deity who happened to be passing, that someone would appear from somewhere. A complete waste of time. It was Friday. Alcohol was being consumed somewhere else. I was leaving so I’d handed in my com and I’ve never had a mobile phone. There was no chance of any sort of rescue of any kind. I was on my own.
He said softly, ‘Door,’ and the door slid open.
I halted on the threshold and considered my options. That didn’t take long.
‘I don’t want to kill you,’ he said softly. ‘I really don’t, but I will if I have to. Into the pod please.’
Again, that prick in the neck.
What could I do?
Nothing. I stepped into the pod.
‘A little further, please.’
Another step. The door slid shut behind me.
Leon and I were once pursued by the Time Police. Not for very long, thank goodness, but for long enough for me to realise how difficult life is for those attempting to survive outside their own time. Everyone has a place in the world. You might not like it, but that’s your place and it fits you perfectly. It’s where you’re supposed to be. Try moving out of that place, out of your own time, and life becomes very difficult. Without membership of a family,
or guild, or tribe, without letters of introduction or recommendation, without ID cards or a credit record – life becomes nearly impossible. Ronan was a fugitive. He’d been on the run for years. I would have expected the state of his pod to reflect that fact. Yes, it was battered and well used, and there was more duct tape around than Leon would have been happy about, but it was clean, neat and smelled no worse than any other pod I’d ever been in.
I think, subconsciously, I’d been hoping for some sort of mechanical failure. Or that his pod was unstable and the safety protocols would cut in, but there was no hope. This pod was, apparently, in full working order. I felt my shoulders drop with disappointment.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a long day. You should sit down.’
I must have looked surprised at this consideration because he smiled. I was not reassured.
‘Yes, I can well imagine your astonishment, but things really will proceed so much more quickly and smoothly if you can just accept that I don’t want to kill you – far from it – and sit down and make yourself comfortable. I really, really don’t want anything to happen to you.’ He smiled again. ‘Or your child.’
‘What do you want, Ronan?’
‘I want you. And your child of course. And now I have you. If you could just excuse me for one moment, please. Computer. Execute pre-programmed jump.’
‘Jump executed.’
Before I could do anything about it, the world went white.
We landed with a bit of a bump. Nothing serious. It would have been one of Peterson’s better efforts.
‘Well,’ he said, coming to sit in the other seat, but still holding the gun. ‘Here we are at last.’
‘Where? Where are we?’
I was scanning the read-outs. Some weren’t working. I suspected some might have been giving false readings because there were no sets of coordinates that I recognised.
‘Oh, I’m not going to tell you that. I think it can only add to your experience if you don’t know when or where you are. Imagine the fun you’ll have discovering that for yourself. Would you like some tea?’
He really was a very clever man. If he’d shouted, raged, and waved his gun around, then I’d have fought back and it would all have gone very badly. For both of us, I’d like to think, but when your kidnapper fusses around the place asking if you’re warm enough and how many sugars you take, it’s quite difficult to feel threatened.
I told him three because I needed the energy, and he seemed genuinely amused.
‘Isn’t that rather a lot?’
‘No. You can never have too much sugar.’
‘Especially if you’re planning to throw your tea all over the console in the hope of disabling the pod. That was the plan, wasn’t it?’
I was getting my breath back. Two could play at this polite kidnapping game.
‘Yes, it was. Well spotted. Although I was hoping it wouldn’t be the tea that would be the problem but the sugar. IT once told me if I ever spilled tea on my keyboard to swill it under the tap as quickly as possible. It can’t do any more harm and possibly might save the keyboard.’
He nodded. ‘It’s the sugar that does the damage. I once lost an entire mission plan when I knocked over a mug of coffee. I was extremely annoyed about that, I can tell you.’
Keep him talking. ‘We have cup holders in our pods.’
‘No! Really? What a very good idea. It would appear Leon Farrell does have some uses after all.’ He sat back, smiling. Holding the gun …
I began to feel I was losing my grip on things. I was sitting in a pod with a renegade historian and murderer from the future and we were discussing minor IT mishaps over a cup of tea. Ronan, however, was a very clever man and I was here for a reason. And, in addition to being clever, he was vicious, ruthless and he hated me. Don’t lose sight of that, Maxwell. Don’t let him fool you. Sit quiet. Ask questions. The longer I was in here, still comparatively safe, the more chance I had of … of … thinking of something that would get me home.
On the face of it, the odds didn’t look good. He hadn’t made himself tea. He sat, just that little bit too far away from me, the dart gun on the console where he could get to it if need be.
Leaning back, but never taking his eyes from me, he said, ‘I’ve given up trying to kill you, Max. You have more lives than a sack full of cats. I’ve revised my strategy a little and I think you’ll agree I’ve come up with a winner.’
He paused so I could be impressed. I said nothing, nursing my empty mug in my lap, because according to Ian Guthrie, everything can be a weapon.
‘My plan is that you stay alive for as long as possible, because you will hate every moment of the life you will lead here. This place really is the arse end of nowhere, Max, and every day will be a squalid struggle to keep yourself and your child alive. Believe me, the things you will do will both surprise and appal you. There will be no depths to which you will not sink.
‘Which brings me to the point of today. I can see that you’re puzzled, so let me clarify. I’ve brought you back here today, to this lovely time and place, for you to give birth.’
I had the strangest feeling my blood had turned to ice. I could do nothing but stare at him as the impact of his words sank in. It may have looked as if I was uncomprehending, but my mind was working furiously. I knew what he had planned and it was very, very bad. In fact, it couldn’t be worse. This was not some plan to kill me – something with which I could grapple and potentially overcome. His plan was that I should live – and for as long as possible – because he wanted my child to be born here, and once it was – once it was born here, wherever here was – then I was lost. We were both lost. Because if she or he was born here then they became a contemporary, and even if Leon and every single member of St Mary’s came roaring over the horizon, once my child was born here, it could never leave this time.
‘Exactly,’ he said, having watched me come to this conclusion.
‘They’ll find me,’ I said, with a confidence I was far from feeling.
‘I’m counting on it,’ he said. ‘But will they find you in time, eh? You don’t have long to go, do you? A day or two at the most. Will they have found you by then, do you think? I don’t think so. And then it will be decision time, won’t it? Who stays and who goes home? The child stays, of course. No question of that – didn’t you just fight a bloody battle with the Time Police over that very issue. They’ll be watching you like a hawk in future. You’ll never get away with that again. So what will you do? It might die if it stays here, but it’ll definitely die if you try to get it out. So will you stay too? I think we both know the answer to that one. You’ll stay, and begin your endless, bitter struggle for survival.
‘And that’s the bit I’m really looking forward to, Max. Watching to see exactly what you will do to keep yourself and your child alive until your rescuers appear. However long that takes. How low will you sink? What will you do for a bowl of unidentifiable slop if you haven’t eaten for a week? Or a piece of worm-ridden bread carelessly tossed into a gutter for you to grovel after? How many hours will you spend on your knees in some filthy alley somewhere, performing for a group of laughing men you suspect have no intention of paying you anything? Your looks won’t last long here, I can tell you that for nothing. In three months’ time, you’ll be giving yourself away for anything you can get.
‘And then, just picture the scene: a pod materialising out of nowhere – your dream come true – and all those clean, well-fed, glossy friends of yours bursting out of the door, all eager to save their colleague, and they won’t even recognise you. They’ll run straight past that boney bag of rags – the one with her legs permanently open to catch any passing trade. The one with the wailing kid hanging off her empty tit. That will be you, Maxwell. What you have become. Can you imagine the looks on their faces?
‘And then what? Because that’s when the fun really starts. For me, anyway. Oh, I’ll grant you, Leon Farrell will hide his disgust – doesn’t he just piss you
off sometimes? It must be like being married to a noble horse. What of Noble Leon? Will he stay with you? I wouldn’t be too sure of the answer to that, if I were you.’
‘Good to see you again, Max. I’ve missed you.’
‘And finally you, my lovely Max. How much will you love this child of yours – the reason for what I can assure you is going to be a pretty dreadful life? How tempted will you be? Imagine one night – you’re hungry. It’s hungry. You’re both cold. It won’t stop whining. On and on. Driving you insane. If only it would die. And it might. It could. Just a little pressure … here … and problem gone. Really, looking at the scabby little runt, it’s a kindness, don’t you think? And you’d be free. Free to return to St Mary’s when they turn up for you. Free to make up some story about the tragic loss of your child. Because you wouldn’t want people to know, would you Max? You wouldn’t want Noble Leon knowing you’d murdered your own child to ensure your escape.’
He sat back. The console was covered in spittle from the violence of his words. His scars showed white against his livid skin. His eyes were bulging with the fury I had known would not be that far beneath the surface.
I was beyond speech. Beyond thought. I should have taken advantage of his temporary loss of control, but I couldn’t. I was overwhelmed. Completely overwhelmed. Not just by the tidal wave of words, but the hatred behind them, and the vividness with which he’d portrayed my future. I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe.
We sat in silence, contemplating his words while the console ticked over in the background. He was the first to rouse himself.
‘Now, I know you have plenty to say to me, but shall we pause for a moment and readjust our thoughts. Are you feeling thirsty yet?’
I stared at him. Wild ideas flew through my mind. Smash the mug and attack him with one of the jagged pieces. Throw myself at him and do whatever damage I could. It would be considerable, I’d make sure of that. Even if I just threw him to the floor and fell on top of him, it might wind him long enough for me to …
To roll over like a beached whale, rock myself to my feet and lumber to a console that wouldn’t accept my instructions. Come on Maxwell, you can do better than that. Then my brain caught up with my ears.