The Map of Time

by Félix J Palma

  “Good-bye, Tom. You were the best Shackleton I could hope to find, but such is life,” he said. “Give my regards to Perkins.” Tom’s companions swung his body and at the count of three tossed both him and the stone into the Thames. Tom had time to fill his lungs with air before hitting the surface of the water. The ice-cold water came as a shock, dispelling the lethargy pervading his body. He was struck by fate’s final irony: what good was it to feel so awake now that he was about to drown? He sank in a horizontal position to begin with, but the weight of the stone soon pulled him upright, and he plummeted with astonishing speed to the bottom of the Thames. He blinked several times, trying to glimpse something through the greeny-brown water, but there was not much to see, besides the bottoms of the boats floating above and a flickering halo of light cast by the quay’s only streetlamp. The stone quickly hit the riverbed and Tom remained floating above it, suspended by ten inches of rope, like a child’s kite, buffeted by the current. “How long could he go without breathing?” he wondered. What did it matter? Was it not absurd to struggle against the inevitable? Even though he knew it would only postpone death, he pressed his lips tightly together. Again that painful instinct to survive, but now he had understood this sudden will to live: he had discovered that the worst thing about dying was not being able to change what he had been, that when he died, others would only see the repulsive tableau into which his life was going to solidify. He remained hanging upright for what felt like an excruciating eternity, lungs burning, temples throbbing deafeningly, until the urgent need to breathe compelled him against his will to open his mouth. Water began filling his throat, streaming merrily into his lungs, and everything around him became even fuzzier. Then Tom realized this was it: in a few seconds he would lose consciousness.

  In spite of this, he had time to see the figure appear. He watched him emerge from the swirling fog in his brain mist and walk towards him along the riverbed with his heavy metal footsteps, oblivious to the water all around him. Tom assumed that the lack of oxygen to his brain had allowed the automaton to escape from his dreams and move around in the real world. He was too late, though; Tom had no need of him, he was quite capable of drowning without his help. Or perhaps he had simply come for the pleasure of watching him die, face to face in the river’s murky depths.

  But to his surprise, when the automaton finally reached his side, he gripped Tom’s waist with one of his metal arms, as if to lead him in a dance, while with the other he tugged at the rope around his feet until he loosened it. Then he heaved Tom up towards the surface, where Tom, still semiconscious, could see the bottoms of the boats and the shimmering streetlamp gradually looming larger. Before he knew it, his head emerged above the water.

  The night air coursed into his lungs, and Tom knew this was the true taste of life. He breathed in greedily, spluttering like a hungry infant choking on its food. He allowed his enemy to hoist his near-lifeless body onto the quayside, where he lay on his back, dizzy and numb with cold. He felt the automaton’s hands pressing repeatedly down on his chest. The pumping helped him spew out the water he had swallowed. When there seemed to be no more, he coughed a few times, bringing up some congealed blood, and could feel life slowly seeping back into his limp form. He was overjoyed to discover he was alive again, to feel life’s soft pulse flowing through him, filling him voluptuously, like the river water had done only moments before. For a split second, he even felt the illusion of immortality, as though such a close brush with death, having felt the Grim Reaper’s chill fingers closing around him, had in some way acquainted him with it, so that its rules no longer applied to him. Somewhat recovered, Tom forced himself to smile at his savior, whose metallic head was floating above him, a dark spherical object lit by the single streetlamp on the quay.

  “Thank you, Solomon,” he managed to splutter.

  The automaton unscrewed his head.

  “Solomon?” he laughed. “It’s a diving suit, Tom.” Although his face remained in the shadow, Tom recognized Martin Tucker’s voice, and he was overwhelmed with happiness.

  “Have you never seen one before? It lets you walk underwater, just like strolling in a park, while someone pumps air through a tube from the surface. We have Bob to thank for that and for winching us both up onto the quay,” explained his companion, pointing towards a figure out of Tom’s field of vision. Then, after putting the helmet to one side, Martin lifted Tom’s head and examined it with the carefulness of a nurse. “’Struth, the boys did a good job. You’re in a right state. Don’t be angry with them, though. They had to make it look realistic in order to dupe Murray. And I think it worked. As far as he’s concerned, they’ve done the job and are no doubt receiving their dues right this minute.” Despite his swollen lips, Tom grimaced in surprise. So it had all been a charade? Apparently so. As Murray had explained to him before having him thrown him in the Thames, he had hired Tom’s companions to kill him. But they were not as heartless as Tom had thought, even though they were not well enough off to refuse his money. If they were clever, they could put on another performance, Tucker must have suggested—this burly fellow who was now brushing back Tom’s hair from his bloodied brow, and gazing down at him with fatherly affection.

  “Well, Tom, the performance is over,” he said. “Now that you’re officially dead, you’re free. Your new life begins tonight, my friend. Make the most of it, as I am sure you will.” He squeezed Tom’s shoulder in a gesture of farewell, smiled at him one last time, and vanished from the quay leaving an echo of metallic footsteps lingering behind him. After he had gone, Tom lay still, in no hurry to get up, trying to assimilate everything that had happened. He took a deep breath, testing his sore lungs, and looked up at the heavens arching above him. A beautiful pale yellow full moon lit up the night sky. It grinned down at him, like a death’s head that had threatened to swallow him only to breathe new life into him, for, incredible though it might seem, everything had been resolved without him having to die—at least not in reality, for his body was supposedly now lying at the bottom of the Thames. His body was racked with pain and he felt weak as a kitten, but he was alive, alive! Then a feeling of wild delight overwhelmed him, compelling him to get up off the cold floor, where if he lay much longer in those wet clothes he would catch pneumonia. He struggled to his feet and limped away from the docks. His bones were bruised but not broken. His companions must have taken care not to injure any of his internal organs.

  He glanced around him. The place was deserted. At the entrance to the cul-de-sac where the fight had started, lying next to Wells’s novel, he saw the flower Claire had given him. He picked it up gently and held it in the palm of his hand, as one holds a compass indicating which way to follow.

  The sweet, fragrant scent of narcissi, faintly reminiscent of jasmine, guided him slowly through the labyrinth of the night, pulling him gently like the sea’s undertow, drawing him towards an elegant house immersed in silence. The fence around it was not too high, and a creeper seemed to adorn its façade for the sole purpose of making it easier for the most daring men to climb to the window of the girl sleeping in a bed where there was no longer any room for dreams.

  Tom gazed with infinite tenderness at the girl who loved him as no one had ever loved him before. From her open lips came short, soft sighs as though a summer breeze were wafting through her. He noticed her right hand clutched around a piece of paper on which he could make out Wells’s miniscule handwriting. He was about to wake her with a caress when she opened her eyelids slowly, as though he had roused her simply by gazing at her body.

  She did not appear in the least surprised to see him standing beside her bed, as if she had known that sooner or later he would appear, guided by the scent of her narcissi.

  “You’ve come back,” she whispered sweetly.

  “Yes, Claire, I’ve come back,” he replied in the same voice.

  “I’ve come back for good.” She smiled serenely at him, realizing from the dried blood streaking his lips and cheeks how much h
e loved her. She stood up and with the same calmness, walked towards his open arms.

  And as they kissed, Tom understood that, regardless of what Gilliam Murray thought, this was a far more beautiful ending than the one where they never met again.

  PART THREE

  Distinguished gentlemen and impressionable ladies, we have arrived at the closing pages of our thrilling tale.

  What marvels are there still in store for you? If you wish to find out, make sure your attention does not stray from these pages for an instant, because in an even more amazing discovery you will be able to travel in time to your heart’s content, into the past as well as to the future.

  Dear reader, if you are no coward, dare to finish what you have started! We can guarantee this final journey Is well worth the effort.

  34

  Inspector Colin Garrett of Scotland Yard would have been pleased if the sight of blood did not make him feel so queasy that each time his job obliged him to look at a dead body he had to leave the scene to be sick, especially if the cadaver in question had been subjected to a particularly dreadful attack. However, sadly for him, this was such a regular occurrence that the inspector had even considered the possibility of forgoing breakfast, in view of how little time the meal actually remained in his stomach. Perhaps it was to compensate for this squeamishness that Colin Garrett had been blessed with such a brilliant mind. At any rate, that was what his uncle had always told him—his uncle being the legendary Inspector Frederick Abberline, who some years previously had been in charge of hunting down the vicious murderer, Jack the Ripper. Such was Abberline’s belief in his nephew’s superior brainpower that he had practically delivered the boy himself to Scotland Yard’s headquarters with an impassioned letter of recommendation addressed to Chief Superintendent Arnold, the austere, arrogant man in charge of the detective squad. And, during his first year there, Garrett had to acknowledge that, to his surprise, his uncle’s trust in him had not proved unfounded.

  He had solved a great many cases since moving into his office overlooking Great George Street, apparently with very little effort. He had done so without ever leaving his office. Garrett would spend long nights in his cozy refuge, collecting and fitting together the pieces of evidence his subordinates brought to him, like a child absorbed in doing a jigsaw puzzle, avoiding as much as he could any contact with the raw, bloody reality that pulsated behind the data he handled. A sensitive soul like his, despite being twinned with a superior brain, was unsuited to fieldwork.

  And of all the infernos raging behind his office door, perhaps morgues were the places that showed off the grittier side of crime to most flamboyant effect, its tangible side, its unpleasantly real, physical side that Garrett tried so hard to ignore. And so, each time he was forced to view a body, the inspector would give a resigned sigh, pull on his hat, and set off for the loathsome building concerned, praying he would have time to flee the autopsy room before his stomach decided to heave up his breakfast and avoid bespattering the pathologist’s shoes.

  The corpse he was meant to examine that morning had been discovered in Marylebone by the local police, who had handed the case over to Scotland Yard when they found it impossible to identify what kind of weapon had inflicted the wound on the victim—apparently a tramp. Garrett imagined the bobbies doing this with a wry smile, content to give the brain boxes in Great George Street a sufficiently puzzling case to make them earn their salary. It had been Dr. Terence Alcock, waiting for him at that very moment at the entrance to the York Street morgue wearing a bloodstained apron, who had confessed that they were faced with a mystery that he for one found completely baffling. And when a man as well versed as the pathologist, who was fond of airing his knowledge at every opportunity, admitted defeat so openly, it made Garrett think he was confronted by a truly interesting case.

  This was the sort you might expect to find in a novel featuring his hero Sherlock Holmes, not in real life, where more often than not criminals showed a distinct lack of imagination.

  To Garrett’s astonishment, the pathologist greeted him with a grim expression and guided him in solemn silence down the corridor to the autopsy room. He immediately understood that the inexplicable wound had vexed him to the point of clouding his usually excellent humor. Despite the rather alarming appearance that having only one eyebrow gave him, Dr. Alcock was a cheerful, garrulous fellow. Whenever Garrett appeared at the morgue, he always greeted him in a jovial manner, reciting in a singsong voice the order in which he considered it most appropriate to examine the abdominal cavity: peritoneum, spleen, left kidney, suprarenal gland, urinary tract, prostate gland, seminal vesicles, penis, sperm cord … a litany of names ending with the intestines. He left that part for last for reasons of hygiene, he explained, because handling their contents was a revolting job.

  And I, who see everything whether I want to or not, as I have repeatedly reminded you throughout this tale, can confirm that, notwithstanding his propensity for bluster, in this instance the doctor was definitely not exaggerating. Thanks to my supernatural ability to be in all places at once, I have seen him more than once in this unpleasant situation, covering himself, the corpse, the dissecting table, and even the floor of the autopsy room with excrement, although out of concern for your sensibilities I shall refrain from any closer description.

  This time, however, as he walked down the long corridor, the pathologist had a melancholy air and did not reel off his usual list, which Garrett, thanks to his prodigious memory, had often caught himself singing under his breath, usually when he was in a good mood. At the end of the corridor, they reached a large room where an unmistakable aroma of decaying flesh lingered in the air. The place was lit by several four-branched gas lamps hanging from the ceiling, although Garrett thought these were not enough for such a large room and only made it seem even grimmer. In the semidarkness, he could scarcely see more than two yards in front of him.

  Rows of cabinets lined with surgical instruments filled the brick walls, together with shelves lined with bottles containing mysterious opaque liquids. On the far wall was a huge basin, where on more than one occasion he had seen Dr. Alcock rinsing the blood off his hands, like someone practicing a macabre ritual ablution. In the center of the room on a sturdy table lit by a single lamp, was a figure with a sheet draped over it. The pathologist, who always wore his sleeves rolled up, something Garrett found deeply disturbing, gestured to him to approach the table. Like a sinister still life, on a stand next to the body lay an assortment of dissecting knives, blades for cutting through cartilage, a cut-throat razor, various scalpels, a few hacksaws, a fine chisel and accompanying hammer for boring into the cranium, a dozen needles threaded with catgut suture, a few soiled rags, some scales, an optical lens, and a bucket filled with pinkish water, which Garrett tried to not look at.

  Just then, one of the pathologist’s assistants opened the door hesitantly, but the doctor shooed him away angrily. Garrett remembered hearing him rail against the foppish youngsters they sent fresh out of university, who wielded an autopsy knife as though it were a pen, moving only their hand and wrist rather than their whole arm, and making timid, small cuts as if they were preparing a meal. “They should leave that type of slicing to the people who give public demonstrations in the amphitheaters,” Dr. Alcock declared. He was a believer in bold incisions, long, deep cuts that tested the resilience of an arm or a shoulder’s musculature.

  After heading off the interruption, the doctor drew back the sheet covering the body on the slab. He did so without ceremony, like a magician wearily performing the same trick for the thousandth time.

  “The subject is a male aged between forty and fifty,” he said in a flat monotone, “height five foot seven, fragile-boned, with reduced amounts of subcutaneous fat and muscle tissue. The body is pale in color. As for the teeth, the incisors are present, but several molars are missing, and most of those remaining contain cavities and are covered in a darkish layer.” After presenting his report, he paused, waiting for the
inspector to stop staring up at the ceiling and to decide to look at the corpse.

  “And this is the wound,” he declared enthusiastically, attempting to coax Garrett out of his passivity.

  Garrett gulped air and allowed his eyes to descend slowly towards the cadaver, until his astonished eyes came to rest on the enormous hole in the middle of the chest.

  “It is a circular opening, twelve inches in diameter,” explained the pathologist, “which you can look straight through as if it were a window, as you will see if you lean over.” Reluctantly, Garrett bent over the huge hole, and indeed was able to glimpse the table through it.

  “Whatever caused the wound, besides badly scorching the skin around the edges, pulverized everything in its path, including part of the sternum, the rib cage, the mediastinum, the lungs, the right ventricle of the heart, and the corresponding section of the spinal cord. What little survived, like some pieces of lung, fused with the thoracic wall. I have yet to carry out the postmortem, but this hole was clearly the cause of death,” the pathologist pronounced, “only I’ll be hanged if I know what made it. The poor wretch looks as if he’s been pierced by tongue of flame, or if you prefer, by some sort of heat ray. But I don’t know any weapon capable of doing this, except perhaps the Archangel Michael’s flaming sword.” Garrett nodded, struggling with his rebellious stomach.

  “Does the body present any other anomalies?” he asked, by way of saying something, feeling the sweat begin to pearl on his forehead.

  “His foreskin is shorter than average, barely covering the base of the glans, but without any sign of any scarring,” the pathologist replied, flaunting his professional knowledge. “Apart from that the only anomaly is this accursed hole big enough for a poodle to jump through.” Garrett nodded, disgusted by the image the pathologist had conjured up, and with the feeling he knew more about the poor wretch than was necessary for his investigation.