The Accidental Time Traveller

by Sharon Griffiths

  She sort of nodded, but by now, the tears were streaming down her face, and who could blame her? We trudged up the mucky track, Susan still wearing Billy’s jacket and blowing her nose on the handkerchief she’d found in his pocket. Then I heard the sound of cars coming slowly along the road. As the first one rounded the corner, I snatched the hanky off the bewildered Susan and waved it, so the driver could see us in the dark. The cars stopped. In the light from the headlamps I could just make out the distinctive shapes of police uniforms. I have never in my life been so relieved to see the police.

  ‘Chief Inspector! Am I pleased to see you.’

  ‘Rose Harford! Is this Susan Williams? Thank goodness you’re safe. Are you all right?’

  Susan nodded, and we bundled her into the car. It smelt of leather and tobacco.

  ‘Where’s your colleague?’

  ‘He’s still in there, with Littlejohn. Littlejohn’s confessed to killing Jeremy Cavendish. He’s just let us go. He’s got a gun, but I don’t think he’s dangerous.’

  With that a gunshot rang out. The sound shattered the night. It echoed and bounced around the farmhouse in the little dip. The dog barked wildly and ran around the yard, the chain clanking. Susan clung to me, and I gasped, ‘Will!’

  Oh please God, not Will, not Billy. He’d got the little girl and me out safely. Please God don’t let him be killed. I started to run back down the muddy slope, but the Chief Inspector grabbed me. ‘Stay there!’ he snapped. ‘Look after the girl!’ And he and the other policemen swarmed down the hill to the farmhouse.

  Susan was curled up into herself in the back seat of the car. She was rocking herself back and forth and making small whimpering sounds. It was heartbreaking. But my heart was breaking for Billy too. He had been so calm, so clever, so utterly brilliant. He had to be alive. He had to be.

  I leant into the car and stroked Susan’s arm. ‘There, there,’ I crooned. ‘It will be all right, don’t worry. You’re safe now. You’ll soon be home, back with your mum. You’re safe, don’t worry.’ All the time I was trying to look past her, to see down the hill to the farmhouse, trying to calm myself as much as the little girl.

  The Chief Inspector was giving orders while his men waited in the shadows. They were facing a man with a gun – a very angry and disturbed man who had already killed someone – and they weren’t armed.

  Armed?! They didn’t even have flak jackets or shields. They had nothing, no protection at all. Just their helmets and native wit. It was madness, but they hadn’t seemed to hesitate. How brave they were, I thought. To do what they were doing took huge physical courage.

  I carried on trying to soothe Susan, but by now I was so tense, so anxious about Billy that I could hardly breathe, let alone speak. What had happened in that kitchen? Please God let Billy be all right. Please God.

  Then the farmhouse door opened. A small gleam of yellow light gradually fanned out in front of it. My hand froze on Susan’s arm as I tried to make out what was happening. I could see a figure in the doorway, illuminated in the lamplight. It was impossible to see who it was. Fear filled my throat. Then the figure moved forward. He was tall and slim, in shirtsleeves…

  Billy. It was Billy. Thank you God. Thank you. Billy was walking out of the house. He was safe. Susan saw him too and gasped. I wanted to run back down the hill and fling my arms around Billy, but Susan was clinging to me. We hugged each other, shaking and sobbing from relief.

  Down in the yard Billy was surrounded by policemen. I could see him talking to them, pointing back inside the house. They went in while he walked slowly, wearily up the hill and got in the Chief Inspector’s car.

  I still had one arm around Susan, but I stretched out with the other towards Billy. I just had to touch him, to know he was really alive. He returned the pressure gently, then over Susan’s head, he put his finger to his lips. Then he bent his head down towards her and said, ‘It’s all right sweetheart. We’re going home now.’

  He leant back against the leather upholstery of the seat, closed his eyes, blew a sigh and shook his head as if to clear it of the things he had seen.

  More police cars came, their lights bobbing along the narrow road. A policeman took us back, first to The Grange, where Joyce Williams hugged her daughter so hard that she must almost have broken her ribs. She took her into the house, but I don’t think there was much wild rejoicing because, after all, Jeremy Cavendish, her employers’ son, was dead.

  Then Billy told me that Littlejohn had shot himself.

  ‘Didn’t you try to stop him?’ I asked.

  ‘What? Just so he could hang instead?’ said Billy. ‘It was a kindness to let him do it. It was the only decent thing he could have done. Saved the trouble of a trial and the hangman’s noose.’

  I thought of those flowery curtains, the patchwork cushion. Twenty years ago that must have been a happy home. And it had come to that. I started shivering and couldn’t stop. Billy put his arm around me, kindly, compan-ionably, concerned.

  He smelt of sweat and mud, a very masculine smell, strange but very comforting. He squeezed my shoulder gently. The place where he had touched me flushed with heat. I grasped his hand. I longed to cling to him, hold him tightly, make sure he was really all right. I wanted to hold his face in my hands and kiss every little hollow of his cheekbones in gratitude that he was here, alive and well.

  He smiled at me, and, as his eyes held mine, for a moment I thought I saw my emotions mirrored in his. But then gently, wearily, he eased his hand out of mine, putting a distance between us, and we just sat like that in the back of the police car as they drove us into town.

  ‘G’night,’ said the policeman as he stopped to let us out in front of The News. ‘I’ll read all about it in the morning.’

  ‘We’ve got to write it first,’ laughed Billy, taking my hand to help me out of the car. We went into the yard, past the vans and the newspaper hoist and in through the back door, to the shabby back staircase. Billy stopped in the shadows at the foot of the stairs, and put his hands on my shoulders.

  ‘You were terrific tonight,’ he said. ‘The way you looked after the kid and calmed her down.’

  ‘You were pretty fantastic yourself,’ I said. ‘My God, he could have shot you! One wrong word and, oh, I don’t want to think about what could have happened.’

  ‘We must be a great team, then, mustn’t we?’ He smiled down at me and for a moment, just a moment, I thought he was going to lean down, put his head close to mine and… But no.

  ‘Come on! We’ve got a story to write and we’ll make the last edition if we’re quick.’ And he was bounding up the stairs ahead of me. I trailed behind, my legs suddenly weary from fatigue and disappointment.

  Phil was the only person left on the editorial floor. Billy told him what had happened, then swiftly and efficiently wrote up a brief account for the last edition, occasionally asking me about a word, a sentence, making it a joint effort. He took the copy down to the works, then went into the editor’s office, returning to his desk with a bottle of whisky. He poured generous measures for the three of us into the quickly washed teacups. ‘I think we’ve earned this,’ he said.

  As we filled in more of the details, Phil knocked back the last of his whisky and said, ‘Two things. One, where’s my motorbike? And two, what’s that stink?’

  I looked down. My left leg was still covered in cow shit.

  Chapter Eleven

  Next morning all I wanted was to see that Billy was all right. I ran across town and clattered upstairs to the newsroom.

  He was there. He was sitting at his desk typing, and as I walked in he looked up and smiled at me.

  ‘Good morning!’ he said. ‘Isn’t it nice to be here?’

  And I didn’t care what anyone thought. I went over to him and put my hands on his. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He didn’t move his hands away but instead curled up his fingers until they were wrapped around mine. I gazed at him. He looked pretty bleary too, b
ut his hands were warm and rough on mine. I untangled one of my hands and put it on his shoulder, reaching up, gently to his head.

  ‘Bad dreams?’ he asked.

  ‘Just a bit. I needed to know you were all right.’ And I just stood there for a while, feeling the warmth of his hand.

  ‘Takes more than a mad farmer with a rusty shotgun to get rid of me.’

  ‘I thought … I thought you were brilliant with him. Great negotiating skills.’ I tried to laugh.

  ‘You were good with the kid. Very calm. It helped.’

  ‘Good.’

  We were still and silent for a moment. Me standing, him sitting, still touching, just looking into each other’s eyes, saying nothing, saying everything.

  Then he gave my hand a final squeeze and moved his hand away.

  ‘And now we’d better get down to some work,’ he said briskly. ‘And you’d better go around to the police station and make a statement. I’ve already done mine.’

  The working world came back into focus. My heart slowed down to something more normal. Billy wound paper and carbons into his typewriter and started tapping away on a longer fuller version of the very brief report we’d done just a few hours earlier. Billy talked it through as he wrote it, and, although it was tricky, what with Jeremy Cavendish being dead and Littlejohn having shot himself, I added bits, suggested bits and together we made a decent fist of it. If I’d been writing it up in the twenty-first century, I would have been plastered all over the pages, with my picture. But then it was a much more sober affair, and the only byline was ‘Our Reporters’.

  But after that night and that story, everything seemed to get easier. I began to feel accepted as part of the team at The News, and the others started treating me like one of them, which was good. It helped, of course, that the old lech Gordon was still hopping around on his crutches and couldn’t get in. I still kept clear of the subs’ room, mind.

  I began to feel less fraught about what was going on. Where I was in time and space – Narnia or over the blessed rainbow – didn’t seem to matter quite so much.

  Working with Will got no easier. Seeing him every day and not being able to hold him, talk to him, be with him the way I once had was torture. And the friendlier we became, the more companionable and easier with each other, the worse it was.

  But that morning, everyone wanted to know what had happened. Even Peggy was quite chatty and she made me a cup of tea – using the editor’s kettle, how honoured – while I told her all about it. I’d just got to the bit where I was telling her how Billy had calmed Littlejohn down. ‘Little-john was so angry and Billy just spoke to him quietly and it was like magic …’ when Leo walked in.

  Leo! I thought back to when I’d seen him the day before all this began, in the pub with Jake, arm in arm, laughing, and so excited about their civil partnership plans.

  ‘Leo?’ I asked. ‘Is it you?’

  He looked at me blankly, and it was Will and Caz all over again. But I think I was sort of expecting that. Peggy jumped up from her desk. ‘Hello Lenny!’ she cried. ‘I’ve got a great pile of books here for you.’

  She turned to me. ‘This is Lenny. He does a lot of our book reviews. He reads an awful lot.’ She giggled archly. ‘That’s why he’s got no time for girls.’

  ‘So that’s why, is it?’ I said and put my foot in it big time. Well I mean, when Peggy said that he had no time for girls I thought she knew Leo/Lenny was gay. I mean, why else would she say something so stupid unless she meant it as a joke, however feeble?

  ‘So how’s Jake?’ I asked. ‘Are you still with Jake Andrews? Or is that different here too?’

  Lenny looked as if I’d hit him. He really did. He went white, then red, and gazed at me as if I’d told him the worst news in the world.

  Peggy was fussing about with a pile of books on the shelf behind her desk so, luckily, couldn’t see Lenny’s expression.

  Lenny seemed terrified. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said. Then he picked up his briefcase, hurriedly, awkwardly. ‘I have to go, Peggy. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘What about …?’ But Lenny had gone, practically running from the room.

  ‘Well, what’s the matter with him?’ said Peggy. ‘He’s normally so nice and chatty. Ah well, must have got out of bed the wrong side. Right, now tell me about the farmer. Did you actually see him shoot himself?’

  Sighing, I finished the story.

  Later, when Billy and I were checking the page proof of our story, I said, ‘Billy, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Mmm?’ He was drinking a cup of tea while reading the proof. It was such a Will attitude and response. Ouch. I was getting better at separating Will and Billy, but it wasn’t easy.

  ‘Tell me, is it acceptable to be gay around here?’

  He looked at me a bit blankly.

  ‘Well, er, of course it is. You can be as gay as you like. Laugh, sing, you don’t have to be gloomy. A bit of gaiety is always cheering.’

  Now it was my turn to look blank. ‘No, not gay like that, I mean gay’

  Blank look.

  ‘Gay as in homosexual.’

  A faint light began to dawn in Billy’s eyes. ‘You mean like er, like …’ He was clearly a bit embarrassed, which was sweet.

  ‘I mean one man loving another man.’

  Was Billy blushing? Just a hint of pink on his gorgeous hollow cheekbones?

  ‘Like, um, queers and nancy boys?’

  ‘Exactly like that. Is it acceptable? I guess by your reaction it isn’t.’

  ‘Well it’s against the law for a start.’

  Oh God, of course, I’d forgotten. Homosexuality was illegal until, oh I don’t know when, the 1960s I think. ‘But even though it’s illegal …’ I mean, a lot of things are illegal but quite acceptable, aren’t they? Like speeding or smoking dope, or dodging your tax. ‘… even though it’s illegal, is it still, well, all right?’

  Billy was definitely blushing now.

  ‘Well, er yes, there are people you know, who are, well, who are … there were a few in the army. But, well, you don’t make a song and dance about it, because well, you just don’t. Right now, can we just get on with this please?’

  He was so embarrassed, poor boy. I wondered whether it was because he was talking about gays, or just because he was talking about gays to a woman. Very funny really. But it told me what I needed to know, and it looked as though I had dropped Leo/Lenny right into it. I wondered whether I should tell Billy about some of Elton John’s parties. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready to hear that from me …

  I was just smiling to myself about that when Phil, the reporter on night shift, came in. ‘Have you got your motorbike back?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes thanks. Only a young copper seemed to think there was something very suspicious about it all.’

  ‘Is there much activity up there?’

  ‘No, we sent a reporter up earlier, but I think the police have more or less finished there now. Up to the solicitors now, I suppose.’

  ‘I wonder what will happen to the house, if there’s anyone to inherit it. If so, they should have helped Little-john when he was alive.’

  ‘It will probably be a tenancy. The estate will take it back and let it out again to someone.’

  ‘Let’s hope they have better luck there. Anyway, what are we going to do about a follow-up?’

  ‘Follow-up?’ Both Billy and Phil looked at me as if I were talking a foreign language.

  ‘Yes. I mean this has been a terrific story, but shouldn’t we be getting more background about the Littlejohns?

  What led up to this tragedy, etc, etc? And see how Susan’s coping? And her mum? You know, “My Night of Anguish, by shotgun girl’s mum”?’ I was looking at them eagerly. They were looking at me blankly.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Billy. ‘Let’s just let them get on with it in peace now,’ he said. He took some papers and walked out of the office, leaving me feeling a bit of an idiot.

  ‘Look
, Rosie.’ It was Phil’s turn to look a bit embarrassed now. ‘Tonight’s my last day on nights. I’ve got tomorrow off, then I start on days again. Would you like to come to the flicks with me on Thursday?’

  I looked at him. I was still thinking of follow-ups, and he was asking me out. A date! It was ages since anyone had asked me for a date. Because of course, I was with Will. But not here I wasn’t. But my heart was … Oh why not? This was only a pretend world after all. I smiled. ‘Right, yes. OK Phil, that would be really nice. I’d like that.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Phil. ‘I’ll see you Thursday then. We’ll go straight from work.’ And he gave me a sweet smile and got on with making the first calls of the evening.

  When I got home everyone wanted to know about the kidnapping and the murder. So I had to tell the story all over again, over the sausage and grey-looking mash.

  ‘Well I don’t care what anyone says,’ said Mrs Brown firmly, as she cleared the plates away, ‘all this started when that silly girl got herself in the family way. If she’d had more sense …’

  ‘But she didn’t get herself pregnant on her own, Mrs Brown,’ I said. ‘She must have been desperate to kill herself.’

  ‘She drowned herself in Friars’ Mill, didn’t she?’ asked Peggy quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Jeremy Cavendish had presumably said he’d stand by her, and when he didn’t she shamed him by killing herself almost on his doorstep.’

  ‘Ha! There’s a lot of girls have trusted a fellow and look where it’s got them. Silly girl. Should have kept her hand on her ha’penny. No better than she should be and look where it’s led to,’ snapped Mrs Brown, coming back to the table with the pudding.

  And that’s when I opened my big mouth …

  ‘If only they’d been sensible,’ I said. ‘If only she’d been on the pill or something.’

  ‘Pill?’ asked Peggy sharply.

  ‘Yes, you know, the contraceptive pill. No, actually you probably don’t, do you? There’s a pill you take that stops you getting pregnant. And if you slip up then there’s another, the Morning After pill, which you can take up to three days after unprotected sex and …’