Lay Down Your Hand

by Cherie Mitchell

  His phone suddenly rang out, the jarring noise in the silence of the apartment startling him out of his reverie and dragging him back to the present. He jumped up and hurried over to pick it up, sure it must be Ramona calling. There was no one else here in this unfamiliar place who knew his face or his name, and he hadn’t been warned to expect a call.

  “Hello?” He waited, expecting to hear Ramona’s crisp voice in reply, but there was nothing save for a thick static in his ear. “Hello?” He was about to hang up when he heard it, a voice laden with hate and fury, a voice certain to send chills down the spine of the staunchest man.

  “Tell Elliot Cinder that Jack called.” The line went dead immediately after, leaving Elliot puzzled and uneasy. The man had known his name, but who was he? Who had given him this number, and why didn’t he stay on the line to talk? Making a mental note to ask Ramona about it the next time he spoke to her, he tossed the phone back down on the kitchen bench and went across to turn on the television to create some artificial company for himself in an environment too quiet to feel like home.

  Chapter Thirteen

  He spent a restless first night in his apartment, which surprised him. It seemed his new bed was just too soft and luxurious, surpassing even the bed he’d slept in at Darcy’s house in both quality and comfort. His bones were used to hardship and he realised it was going to take his body longer than his mind to grow used to his new surroundings. The era decoder had clearly done its work on his thoughts and knowledge base but his body remembered a life of constant movement, wakefulness, and uncertainty.

  He was up well before dawn, showering and dressing before pulling his chair up close to the window to watch the city wake up below him. He gazed out across the river, wondering if Ramona had managed to contact Darcy again last night. Now that he knew what his purpose was here, he was itching to get on with it. Ramona was still insisting that he speak with Darcy first but did it really matter? He knew the outline of his task and how hard could it really be? He knew how to move stealthily through the streets without being seen, he knew how to protect women from harm, and he knew how to fight if he had to. What else was there to know?

  He idly shuffled his deck of cards, taking comfort from the familiar. His grandmother had gifted him this deck on his sixteenth birthday, and it remained one of his proudest possessions, save for his coat. Disappointingly enough, that coat still hung on Darcy’s coat stand and he doubted if he would ever see it again. However, the loss of the coat wasn’t worth quibbling over when he considered all that he’d gained.

  He got up and pushed the chair back to its rightful place. He would make himself a cup of coffee soon and wait to hear from Ramona. Hopefully, she wouldn’t leave it too late in the day to contact him. A man needed purpose and something to do with both his mind and his hands, as both had the potential to get him into trouble if they weren’t positively engaged.

  Ramona called his number precisely on the stroke of ten as she’d promised, which made him smile. He liked to think he’d already taken Ramona’s measure and as far as he was concerned, she was a woman who preferred to be in charge of both people and time, she did not appreciate being questioned, and she liked one event to roll seamlessly into the next. It was a stressful way to live, in his opinion at least. He knew well enough that life had a slippery way of avoiding strict regimentation.

  She didn’t bother with a greeting. “Elliot, I’ve just spoken to Darcy. He’s given me the details of your first assignment. What are you doing now?”

  He looked down at the coffee cup in his hand, his second one of the morning. “Drinking coffee. Do you want me to meet you somewhere?” His hands tingled at the thought of getting behind the wheel of his car again.

  “Uh… yes. Yes, that’s a great idea. You need to learn to use the tube. It’s the easiest way to get around inner London. Meet me at Finchley Central at 11am. You can use the GPS in your car to find it. There’s parking available there and I’ll show you how to get from A to B. After that, we’ll find somewhere to eat and I’ll fill you in on the details of the assignment.”

  He grinned as he hung up from the call. He now had an objective for the day, his assignment was about to begin, and he had another chance to drive his automobile. A day full of exciting possibilities loomed up ahead of him. He drained the remainder of his coffee, grabbed his car keys, and left the apartment with a bounce in his step.

  He saw Ramona before she saw him. She was tapping her foot and looking irritably at her watch as he walked up to the station. It was five minutes past the hour and he wasn’t overdue by his standards, which meant he wasn’t going to apologise. “Good morning!” he called cheerfully.

  “You’re late.”

  “That all depends on how you want to look at it.” He gave her one of his most charming smiles, one that had seldom failed him in the past, but she didn’t return it.

  “We have a lot to get through today. Your first assignment starts this evening. Hurry up.” She spun away from him to march into the station and he had to run to catch her up. “Where are we going?”

  “The destination really doesn’t matter. This is all about the experience.” She looked up at the timetable board. “There’s a train leaving in two minutes for the city. Run.” She was astonishingly agile, swerving around the other commuters and running down the stairs to the appointed platform as if she did this every day of her life. Elliot was briefly reminded of the thieves who prowled the marketplaces, the street urchins with lightning quick reflexes who could steal an apple or loaf of bread and be on their way again before the stallholder had time to react.

  They managed to catch the train and find themselves a seat before it raced out of the station again. Elliot was impressed by the speed that they were traveling but sitting and watching the world gallop past outside the window was no match for driving a car. Ramona pulled out her phone and opened a notepad page containing a list of bullet points. “I made some notes during my chat with Darcy this morning.”

  “I’m sorry that I didn’t have the chance to talk to him again.”

  “No, it was better that way. I needed to talk to him privately so we could iron out the finer details. He wants you to contact him after you’ve completed the first assignment to debrief.”

  “Does that mean I can contact him myself?” He wasn’t keen on repeating the tedium of watching Ramona try to connect her video call to 1889.

  “Unfortunately, no. We’re still in the middle of beta testing and my laptop has the only Com-dec application currently in existence.” She wriggled back against her seat, angling herself so she could look at him directly. “As we’ve already explained, this evening’s assignment is purely a sample of what to expect going forward. Our first target is Amy Coulter and as a member of the specialty team, she is aware of what we’re doing.” She tapped busily at her phone keyboard. “Here she is.”

  Elliot looked down at the smiling headshot of Amy that now filled the phone screen. She wore her long, brown hair parted in the middle and her finely arched eyebrows were too perfect to be entirely natural. Her full lips were curved into a smile and her hazel eyes stared boldly out of the image, as if laying down a challenge with her gaze. The women of this era were certainly dauntless creatures and that knowledge was disconcerting.

  “She’s aware of what we’re doing? Is she one of your ‘contacts’? Does she know Darcy? Who else is in the team?” At some point, he hoped to break her down with his questions and finally get some answers.

  “All of that is irrelevant at this stage.” Ramona briskly swiped across to the next screen. “She’s been talking to this man on the dating app and she’s arranged to meet him for a drink at a wine bar at 7pm tonight. His name is Shaun.”

  Elliot swiftly took in the man’s classic features, pale and freckled skin, and the thick, strawberry blonde hair swept back from his high forehead. “They haven’t met before?”

  “No, this is the first meeting. I want you to be there as an observer. Take notice o
f everything, eavesdrop on their conversation if you can, and then follow Amy to the tube station after their date ends to make sure she boards her train safely.”

  He looked again at the photo of Shaun, wondering if this was a snapshot of a man with violence on his mind. “Is he the serial killer?”

  “No. We wouldn’t throw you into the deep end like that. This evening’s task has been set up purely to give you experience and training for what lies ahead.”

  “Does Shaun know that? Is he in on it too?”

  She shook her head. “He knows nothing. As far as he’s aware, he matched with Amy on the dating app and he’s meeting an attractive young woman for a drink after work. It’s a blind date for both parties.”

  “And this kind of thing is acceptable?” The era decoder was humming furiously but this idea didn’t sit well with Elliot. An astute person might be able to judge a person’s character or intent if meeting them face to face, and he prided himself on his own shrewd judgement of a person based on their demeanour and deportment. How was it possible to know if a stranger’s intentions were good by viewing a posed photograph, without hearing their voice or gaining any true sense of their mental stability through conversation or observation?

  “Completely acceptable. Life is busy and this is an easy way for people to meet others with a view to forming a relationship or finding love.”

  Elliot opened his mouth to say that life couldn’t be all that busy when everything he’d seen so far was built with time saving in mind, but he thought better of it. Ramona liked to think she was in control, despite her gender. Until he knew her better, it was easier to keep quiet and keep the peace. Darcy obviously valued her as a colleague and while Elliot was uneasy with the concept of answering to a female boss and overseer, his era decoder had warned him that such a circumstance was commonplace here.

  “We’ll get off here.” Ramona stood up as the train roared into a station in a hiss of smelly fumes. “Move quickly, before the doors shut. There’s no time for dawdling or we’ll miss our stop.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Elliot felt strangely nervous as he checked his reflection in the mirror above the basin. He wasn’t nervous about this evening’s activities – it would be easy enough to watch the couple and make sure Amy boarded her train safely – but he was nervous about how well he would fit into the subdued modern environment of a wine bar. He had plenty of experience in the boisterous surrounds of taverns back in his own time but from what Ramona had told him about wine bars, they were something else entirely. What if someone recognised him as an imposter?

  He walked back into the bedroom to look at his full-length reflection in the mirror fixed to the wardrobe door. Ramona had given him several tips on how he should dress but he had to admit that he preferred the slouching comfort of his day clothes. Dressed as he was now, anyone glancing in his direction might mistake him for a toff preparing for dinner with his friends. The smart trousers and fitted silk shirt spoke of quality but the long black woollen coat completed the outfit and lifted his look to an entirely new level.

  The coat was a bone of contention but he’d fought hard to win his argument, refusing to back down despite Ramona’s protests that it looked far too old-fashioned and unloved. He’d spotted it in the window of a charity shop as they passed, a thing of beauty in his eyes from the wide expanse of the collar, to the double row of buttons, to the flair of the hem. It wasn’t exactly the same as the overcoat he’d left in Darcy’s house but it was close enough. He’d ignored Ramona’s grumbles and bought it on the spot.

  He caught the tube into the city and made his way to the wine bar where Amy was to meet her date. His concerns that he might be taken for an imposter were unfounded; no one so much as threw a curious glance in his direction. He ordered a beer under the purple LED lights of the bar and found a table at the back of the room that give him a clear view of the door. The bar was busy but not crowded and he made sure he was in a good spot to notice Amy or Shaun as soon as they arrived.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Amy walked in just minutes after he took his seat, wearing a short black skirt, red high-heel shoes, and a red waist-length blazer. He took a moment to appreciate the shape and form of her tanned legs. Short skirts were a definite improvement on the long gowns favoured by women in 1889, although he could imagine the shock and disgust if anyone back then proposed such an outrageous change to the way women dressed. Amy looked around the room, her eyes skimming quickly over the other patrons, before taking a seat on a high stool set up against the bar itself. Elliot took his drink and moved closer in the hopes of overhearing their conversation once Shaun arrived.

  Shaun was late. Elliot noted Amy’s tense body language as she waited for her tardy date to arrive, remembering the response he’d received from Ramona at the station earlier in the day. Time is important here. The concept was intriguing. Naturally, time was important back in his day too, but everyone made allowances for time lost or misplaced because there were so many ways in which a person might be detained on his way to an appointment or a destination. His thoughts skittered towards the night of Annie’s death and away again. Don’t torture yourself by thinking about it.

  When Shaun eventually arrived, he appeared oblivious to Amy’s frosty reception. He grinned at her before ordering a drink and then he launched into a long-winded and one-sided conversation outlining his own glowing attributes and dedicated work ethic. He was an exceptionally well-dressed man and he vaguely reminded Elliot of his friend Robert, who had always enjoyed the sound of his own voice, the shape of his own words, and the company of women. Elliot and Robert hadn’t spoken for at least a month due to the Elliot’s ongoing depression after Annie’s death. Ever since that dreadful night, Elliot had preferred his own company to the claustrophobic sympathy of others, refusing offers to socialise until the evening he met Darcy Darcel at Chaney’s Tavern and allowed the man to persuade him to return home with him.

  Amy finally had her chance to speak when Shaun asked her what she did for a living, but she’d barely started to explain when he interrupted her again with another anecdote about himself. Elliot watched Amy grit her teeth and he wondered why Shaun didn’t notice her growing irritation. Something about the girl reminded him of his own grandmother, perhaps something in the way she tilted her head or the line of her jaw as she suffered through Shaun’s long-winded speeches. His grandmother too had been a woman who didn’t suffer fools gladly and she’d been happy to tell them so if the opportunity arose.

  The date limped along with several uncomfortable stutters and stops, all of which Shaun seemed oblivious to. He spoke at length about himself, ordered a second drink without asking Amy if she wanted one, and then made a rude and unnecessary comment about her appearance. Elliot grimaced. Shaun needed to make rapid amends and turn this meeting around if he hoped to make a favourable impression on Amy. Perhaps he should pay her a compliment about her hair or ask if she liked to sing. That approach had always worked well for Elliot when it came to the delicate business of impressing a young lady. Women expected a man to make an effort to flatter and coddle them.

  However, it seemed that Amy was done with her blind date. “Women who are willing to accept a stupid man have a much better chance of finding a life partner because they are so many of you out there,” she huffed, her voice loud enough for Elliot to hear clearly over the buzz of other conversations in the bar. “But I’m not one of those women.” She gave Shaun a stare that could stop a runaway horse mid-gallop and snatched up her shoulder bag. He blinked at her dumbly and remained seated, at a loss for words for the first time since he walked in. She moved quickly, propelled by her anger, and Elliot had to jump up smartly to keep up with her. She walked swiftly down the street without looking back and he moved into the shadows to follow her. This last segment would be the easiest part of the night. He could move as cunningly and silently as a cat when it suited him, becoming one with the deep shadows of the night with relative ease.

  “Wh
y are you following me?” She whirled around so quickly that it caught him off guard. Her voice was as harsh as a dockside fisherwoman’s and it contained neither interest nor warmth.

  “Pardon me, ma’am. I’m merely following the guidelines of my assignment. Ramona sent me.” Embarrassed, he stepped out of the shadows to reveal himself. There was no point in lurking back there and pretending he was someone else when she’d already spotted him. He really needed to lift his game.

  She dragged her eyes incredulously over him and to his further humiliation, Elliot realised she found him lacking. “You’re Elliot Cinder?”

  He coughed lightly. “Elliot Cinder at your service, ma’am.”

  “But you’re…” She hastily stopped herself and gave him a weak smile. “Sorry, that was rude of me. I guess I pictured you as someone taller and broader.”

  He straightened his back and held his head high. “I’m a tall man when stood amongst my fellow men, ma’am.”

  “I guess you were considered tall back in those days.” She held out her hand. “Amy Coulter. I’m pleased to meet you at last. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  He returned her strong handshake with a firm grip of his own, determined to show her that he had a hidden strength behind his lean build. “How long have you known about me?”

  “A few months.” She rescued her hand. “Although I didn’t expect to meet you yet. Ramona’s phone call was a surprise. I didn’t think Darcy was sending you so soon.”

  “Neither did Darcy. There were a few… challenges.”

  She nodded gravely. “I understand. It’s a complex operation.”

  He inclined his head back down the street, in the direction of the wine bar they’d just left. “He wasn’t your preferred cut of gentleman?” Women were impossible to understand. Shaun was a good-looking man and he clearly had money to spend on his upkeep, even if he was talkative and brash. Most women would be happy to harness their wagon to the lifestyle a man such as him could provide.