Changing Yesterday

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Changing Yesterday Page 8

by Sean McMullen


  Daniel leaves for Britain, so I was sure to be there to see him off, she thought as she rode. Eleven am to 1 pm accounted for. Emily keeps me at her house for social chit-chat for the afternoon. One pm to 5 pm accounted for. Burglary between 1.30 and 3 pm. Police whistles blown about 3 pm, while I was in the garden with Emily, so that was when the shootings took place. Barry and Lurker seen going north after the murders. Conclusion: Emily had an involvement because she went to so much trouble to keep me occupied. Target: destination of Barry Porter and Peter Lurker.

  Hiding the police bicycle in a laneway near North Brighton Station, Liore muttered ‘By your leave, speaking courtly,’ to herself, then began a tour of the local pubs. At the third she found her quarry.

  ‘Did anyone see the shootings?’ she asked the barman, placing a sixpence on the bar.

  ‘Yeah mate, Stevo was on the platform,’ he replied, pointing to a short man wearing a cloth cap and a patched overcoat. ‘He saw the lot.’

  Stevo had been telling the story to whoever would buy him a drink for quite some time, but was still coherent when Liore confronted him. She flashed her stolen police badge at him and gave him a slow wink.

  ‘Now then, Stevo, I’m Constable Clarke of the Secret Plain Clothes Division,’ she explained as everyone else who had seen the badge drew back in silence.

  ‘Ain’t heard of ’em,’ Stevo said nervously.

  ‘That’s because we’re secret, aren’t we?’ replied Liore. ‘Here’s the deal. You answer my questions, and I’ll leave so these folk can buy you free beer and listen to your story. Give me a load of nonsense, and you will spend the rest of the night in a cell with nobody buying you anything.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, ask!’ exclaimed Stevo, suddenly anxious to please.

  ‘You know Barry the Bag and Lurker the Worker?’

  ‘Yeah, don’t everyone?’

  ‘Were they on the platform during the murders?’

  ‘I seen ’em on the platform when old man Porter got shot and fell through the winder. Barry boy says “Oh frig, it’s me dad”, or somethin’ like that.’

  ‘What else did he say?’

  ‘I already told the coppers that.’

  ‘This is what is known to crime investigators as a double check, Stevo. Tell me what you heard.’

  ‘Barry the Bag says to the Worker, says he, “We gotta go west on the fastest wheels in Australia”, then they rode off north instead on the station bike. I tell yer wot, they definitely weren’t the fastest wheels in Australia.

  ’ The drinkers laughed, and even Liore allowed herself a smile. She flipped a shilling into the air and caught it.

  ‘What else did you hear, Stevo? There’s a shilling’s worth of beer in it for you.’

  ‘Nothin’ that made sense. Like Barry says he gotta tell King important stuff, that’s all I can remember.’

  ‘King?’ exclaimed Liore. ‘Did he say King or the king?’

  ‘Jeez mate, um, constable, since when’s little Barry the Bag gonna have somethin’ to say that the king wants to hear? He musta meant Jim King at South Melbourne Market.’

  Liore flipped the shilling to Stevo, landing it squarely in his glass of beer. By the time Stevo had wiped the beer from his eyes and everyone else had stopped laughing, Liore was gone.

  In 1901 the fastest wheels in Australia are the wheels of a train, thought Liore as she pedalled away up Asling Street. If Barry is going west, it will be on the Adelaide Express. If he has my weapon and intends to sell it to the King of Britain, he will be catching a ship in Adelaide. A new and unexpected thought now crossed her mind. Daniel’s ship calls at Adelaide tomorrow.

  Liore made good progress, for it was dinner time and the dusty, dimly lit streets were almost free of traffic. She had plenty of time to think as she rode, and her thoughts were bleak and deadly.

  Deserted by Muriel and Fox? she thought. Lovers are known to betray the empire for each other, that is why they are shot when found even kissing during a mission. Guilty of desertion. Sentence, death.

  Liore reached the Nepean Highway, wondered if she was taking a risk by continuing to ride a stolen police bicycle, then decided that it was too dark for people to notice.

  Betrayed by Barry? It was only a matter of time. After all, he was more obsessed with the PR-17 than Daniel was with Muriel. Guilty of desertion, conspiracy, treason and espionage. Sentence, death.

  She reached Inkerman Street, turned left, and headed for the city.

  Betrayed by Emily? Her adoration of me was sure to become resentment because I am a girl who has freedoms that she does not. She manipulates people to get what she wants. She must have conspired with Barry to steal the PR-17, but he will betray her as he betrayed me. Guilty of conspiracy, treason and espionage. Sentence, death.

  Only on Clarendon Street, when she was crossing the Yarra River and within sight of Spencer Street Station did Liore finally face up to the betrayal that she had not expected.

  Betrayed by Daniel? Now that is a surprise. How does he fit into this whole web of lies and duplicity? Ah, but of course! Barry has the social graces of a pig in a garbage bin, but Daniel is well-spoken and has perfect manners. If Barry does the stealing, Daniel could convince some very important people to take them seriously. And here I was, sorry for Daniel because of Muriel and Fox. Guilty of conspiracy, treason and espionage. Sentence, death.

  I am Liore BC, and am I guilty of betrayal? Oh no, I was developed to be perfect, so I could never be disloyal to the empire. My revolt was to save the empire, and save it I shall. Not guilty on any charge.

  I am disappointed in all of them, but then what better weapon to use against the Lionhearts than one’s own traitors? This is all working out very well indeed. Sentences are to be suspended until the mission is accomplished.

  To Barry’s relief, Wreder the Writer was in his office at Spencer Street Station when they arrived. He was, however, strangely hostile.

  ‘What you been up to, little bagman?’ asked the elderly railway clerk, peering over his glasses as Lurker and Barry entered. ‘Your bloody line ’as trouble on it. All trains stopped at Gardenvale Station. Trouble at North Brighton, that’s the big word.’

  ‘We don’t know nothin’ ’bout that,’ said Barry. ‘We just want a couple of tikkies on the Adelaide Express.’

  ‘Trouble at North Brighton, an’ suddenly the bagman wants a day off in Adelaide?’

  ‘Both of us, like,’ said Lurker.

  ‘Lurker the Worker likes his days off, I’ll give that a concede, but Lurker the Worker travellin’ all that way for a day off, that’s a suspicion.’

  ‘There’s a fiver in it for ya!’ insisted Barry.

  ‘Oh yeah, little bagman, and this Wreder does like readin’ Five Pounds on a note, but this Wreder don’t like readin’ Wanted: Jim Wreder on a bloody poster.’

  ‘No tikky, no fiver,’ said Barry, as calmly as he could.

  ‘Tell you what, then. Fat Lurker gets a tikky today, and the little bagman gets a tikky tomorrow,’ said Wreder.

  ‘How’s that work, then?’ asked Barry.

  ‘It’s my instinctives that whatever the coppers are sniffin’ for in North Brighton was masterminded by a certain little bagman, and that Fat Lurker was only involved for transportation of goods.’

  ‘The coppers don’t want neither of us!’ exclaimed Barry.

  ‘Then ya can wait another day in Melbourne, then go over on the next Express and meet up with Fat Lurker. Final word from the Wreder, fatman and bagman.’

  ‘Yeah, well we’re innocent. We just got a matter of commercials in Adelaide, an’ you’re not gettin’ no slice of it now.’

  ‘I takes me chances, bagman. Now, show the fiver, and I’ll scribe a tikky for a fat Lurker.’

  A minute later Barry and Lurker were on the platform where passengers were boarding the Adelaide Express.

  ‘Well I got a tikky to Adelaide and a cousin in Adelaide to stay with,’ said Lurker, fiddling nervously with the ticket. ‘What’s
your out, Barry boy?’

  ‘I’m on the bleedin’ train, aren’t I?’ said Barry.

  ‘What train’s that?’

  ‘The Adelaide Express, Worker Man. There’s more ways onto a train than wi’ a tikky from Wreder the Writer. Now get on that train.’

  Now that he was alone, Barry made himself think as those who were hunting him might. The Lionhearts were after him. Liore would be, too, once she discovered that her weapon was gone.

  Stupid bleedin’ Luker! thought Barry. He didn’t contact someone workin’ for the king, he called the bleedin’ Lionhearts. Now Wreder the Writer’s getting’ in the way, but this might be a positive. Liore’s gonna break his door down and check his records. She’ll see Lurker’s gone to Adelaide, but not Barry boy. She’ll think we split up, and I went somewhere else.

  Barry went straight to the station’s locker room, picked the lock and hurried inside. Two minutes later he emerged as a conductor in an ill-fitting but convincing uniform. He boarded the Adelaide Express.

  ‘Joe Smith, apprentice,’ he said to the conductor.

  ‘Nobody told me about you,’ the man replied.

  ‘I’se supposed to help and learn, like,’ said Barry, his nervousness genuine.

  ‘Well, follow me about and try to stay out of the way. You go as far as Ballarat and get off with me, got that?’

  ‘Yeah, sir.’

  The Adelaide Express had already pulled out of the station when Liore arrived. She checked the timetable poster, checked the station clock, checked the time on her radiocomm, then went to the ticket window. There she was told that the names of passengers on the Adelaide Express were in the office, and that the office was closed for the night. She asked where the office might be, so that she might go straight there in the morning. She was given directions.

  Two shots from the stolen police pistol shattered the lock on the office door. She walked in, keyed the light on her radiocomm into life, and cast about for the register she wanted. Peter Lurker was indeed aboard the train, in second class, but not Barry Porter. They must have split up, she thought. Yet why split up? Why put Lurker on a train to Adelaide under his own name? To make me think they have split up? Lurker is going to Adelaide, and Barry is apparently plotting with him.

  Liore concluded that Barry also had to be going to Adelaide because he was colluding with Daniel. Deep in thought, she left the office, then paused in the luggage area where she had left her stolen bicycle. There was no way to catch a fast steam train like the Adelaide Express on a bicycle. Her only option was to wait for the next Express, the following night.

  ‘Yeah, I seen one of these,’ a voice insisted off to her right. ‘It don’t need steam, it runs on spirits.’

  ‘Git aht, all them engine things run on steam,’ said someone else.

  ‘Well looky in ’ere. There’s spirits in this tank.’

  ‘And whaddaya think this thing is ’ere, if not a boiler?’

  ‘So where’s the furnace?’

  Liore saw that two baggage porters were arguing about a moped. This particular moped was no more than an ordinary bicycle with a small petroleum motor bolted on. It had a ticket attached, and was probably being shipped to somewhere in the countryside. She did some quick mental calculations, whispered ‘By your leave, speaking courtly,’ to herself, then walked over to the porters.

  ‘Gentlemen, that is indeed an internal combustion engine, it does not need steam at all,’ she said.

  Because she was well spoken and confident, the two porters deferred to her at once. She explained how the petroleum engine differed from steam engines, then about how one had to pedal to gain the momentum to start the engine. When she offered to demonstrate for them, they were delighted. The platform was crowded, so they took the moped out into Spencer Street. Liore mounted it, primed the engine, pumped the carburettor, pushed the choke lever right over, and engaged the coil. She had pedalled just a few yards down the road when the engine caught and rattled into life. The porters cheered. They stopped cheering when she vanished amid the jumble of horses and carriages on Spencer Street.

  The moped had no headlight, but Liore was able to use moonlight and the light from her radiocomm torch to navigate her way along the dimly lit Spencer Street as it curved to the west and became Dynon Road. Turning up Moore Street, she soon found herself at Ballarat Road. There were now only seventy miles between her and Ballarat, the provincial city where the Adelaide Express would stop.

  Liore found that by running the engine until it nearly overheated the moped could be nursed along at thirty-one miles per hour. This was not as fast as the Adelaide Express was travelling, yet it still made her the fastest traveller on the road. The train would stop for a while in Ballarat, and that delay might just allow her to catch it.

  The moped’s speed brought its own problems. It was late July, and while the day had been fairly mild in Melbourne, the further west Liore travelled, the colder it became. Patches of mist blanketed the road here and there, clouds covered the moon, and drizzle came and went. She was not dressed for a trip on the open road, even at such a slow speed. By the end of the first hour she was wet, shivering, and stiff with cold.

  At the little town of Bacchus Marsh she decided that money would solve some of her problems. At the first pub she came to she bought four bottles of the strongest rum on the shelf, and from the drinkers was able to purchase a ragged oilskin coat with a rain hood, and a pair of heavy leather gauntlets. Having persuaded the engine to start again, Liore rode a mile further west, stopped to empty the first bottle of rum into the tank, then continued on her way again. The engine developed a more ragged note once the rum and fuel mixture reached the carburettor, but it continued to power the moped along.

  Wearing the oilskin and gauntlets, Liore was a lot more comfortable, even when it began to rain. The light from the radiocomm glowed steadily, and even after four bottles of rum the engine continued to operate, although at reduced power. Another hour passed, and a milestone told her that Ballarat was now just ten miles away. Suddenly a washaway appeared across the road. Liore slammed on the brakes, but the moped went over the edge and hit the bottom very heavily. She had been trained to fall without injury, but the moped was not built for that sort of treatment. A single glance at the mangled front wheel told her that she would now have to walk. She set off at once, but after only one mile her radiocomm torch lit up an alternative form of transport, grazing in a field.

  ‘Nice horsey,’ she said as she climbed over the fence.

  Even though the horse was not entirely happy about trotting through the dark with only a strange blue-white light to guide it, she still made better time than she could have on foot. The inland city of Ballarat was quiet as she arrived, and the railway station was deserted. Going into the Railway Hotel, Liore learned that the Adelaide Express had left a quarter of an hour earlier. It had been delayed, but it was still long gone.

  Liore went back outside, led the horse a short distance from the hotel, then turned it loose to graze in someone’s front garden. She then returned to the Railway Hotel, took a room for the night, and asked for a fire to be lit. After arranging her damp clothing to dry in front of the fireplace, she counted out her money. It was infuriating that while she had enough money for a passage to Britain and back, there was no way to catch up with the train. She checked her radiocomm unit. There was no polling signal from Fox’s radiocomm, which told her that Barry had enough sense not to play with it, and that it was still switched off.

  I shall catch you, Barry Porter, she thought. Even though you are a day ahead of me, I shall catch you. I shall then show you what a cadet officer of the Imperial War Academy does to spies and traitors.

  Barry and the conductor left the train at Ballarat. He followed the man until he entered the Railway Hotel, then ran back to the train, got back aboard, and introduced himself to the relief conductor as the new apprentice.

  ‘Well then, may have to settle in for the night,’ said the relief conductor.


  ‘Wot ya mean?’ exclaimed Barry.

  ‘We’ve got a report of a bridge being washed out up ahead at Beaufort.’

  ‘Wot? Ya mean we’re stuck ’ere?’

  ‘Nah. The report came on the telegraph from Melbourne, so what does Melbourne know about Beaufort?’

  Barry suspected that Liore was at work. It was seventy miles to Melbourne. She could ride that distance in three or four hours if she could change horses at that time of night. Knowing Liore, she would not be above stealing a fresh horse whenever she needed one.

  ‘So how long we ’ere for?’ asked Barry.

  ‘Oh, half an hour. There’s a freight train on the line up ahead. If it gets to Beaufort that proves the bridge is okay. The stationmaster there will telegraph us when it arrives.’

  Barry did some hurried sums in his head. A halfhour delay was not much. On horseback Liore could not catch up with the train, even with that delay. On a bicycle she would be even slower. The minutes seemed to drag. Barry strained to hear the sound of a galloping horse, but he heard nothing. In the distance there was singing in one of the pubs. People got off the train to ask about the delay, then got back aboard. Finally the driver blew the whistle, then another minute passed. Still there was no sound of a horse being ridden to death. Finally, the whistle was blown again, the engine chugged laboriously, and the train began to move. For the second time that night Barry almost collapsed with relief.

  Chapter 4

  BYSTANDER

  Adelaide was under clear blue skies as the Express arrived at Adelaide Central Station. Barry was the first out of the train, and he quickly melted into the crowd waiting for the travellers.

  ‘Where’s that Lurker?’ he muttered as he waited at the back of the crowd. ‘Lazy sod’s probably asleep in his carriage.’

  Minutes passed, but Lurker the Worker did not appear.

  ‘All these folk, but Liore and the Lionhearts are only after the bagman,’ Barry whimpered as he waited. ‘Now there’s an inspirational.’

  Barry scanned the crowd for someone about his height with a suitcase and the general look of a traveller. As luck would have it, there was indeed a very short young man on the platform, and he had a suitcase. Taking Liore’s weapon from his bag, Barry crouched behind a pile of heavy luggage, touched the security pad with the ring of hair, aimed at a distant water tower, and fired. The water tower exploded in a splash of charred, shattered slats, boiling water and superheated steam.

 

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