by Jodi Taylor
I stood like an idiot wondering what the hell was going on. I think I thought one of the pods was about to blow. Which wasn’t so very wrong as things turned out. Dieter was shouting something but I couldn’t hear over the noise of the alarms. People raced for the open hangar door. Major evacuation. I saw Polly Perkins urging people through.
And then, off to my right, an unknown pod materialised. I stared. It was in a hell of a state. The casing was scorched and twisted and in some places it had disappeared altogether. It shouldn’t make any difference to the pod – the casing is purely cosmetic, but this level of damage outside gave every indication that all would not be well inside.
A fraction of a second later, another one appeared, directly opposite. This one I recognised. Squat and black and menacing. This was the Time Police. Which gave me a pretty good clue as to the occupant of the first pod.
I was right. The door slid open and Clive Ronan stood on the threshold. He was only about twenty feet away from me. He didn’t look good. I could see the tears in his jeans, the mud on his boots, and the sweat stains in his armpits. He hadn’t shaved in a very long time. He looked unkempt and exhausted. A wave of stale, foetid air billowed out of his pod. God knows what it must be like in there.
At that exact moment, the other pod’s door opened and there stood Leon and Guthrie. They were heavily armoured and helmeted but I knew who it was. They carried heavy-duty blasters. The big ones. Even over the shrieking alarms, I could hear them whining on full charge.
I could hardly believe it. They’d got him. They’d got Clive Ronan at last. They’d chased him up and down the timeline, all the way back to St Mary’s. How fitting that they should finally corner him here.
Ronan caught sight of me and smiled. He actually smiled, saying, ‘Excellent. Three birds with one stone.’
Neither Leon nor Guthrie spared me a glance. All their attention was on Ronan. They brought up their weapons with a snap and slowly moved towards him, yelling at him to surrender. That there was no escape. To put his hands in the air. Now.
I should have guessed. We should all have guessed. Ronan was far too calm. He was even smiling. Slowly, obediently, he raised his hands, just as he’d been told to do, and they weren’t empty. He held a small, round object in each hand. Occasionally, a small red light flickered ominously.
I had no idea what they could be, but they were enough to bring both Leon and Guthrie to a halt.
Someone must have switched off the alarms because sudden silence crashed down. Except for a tinny metallic voice.
‘Sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen…’
A countdown.
Leon, apparently noticing me for the first time yelled, ‘Max, get out of here.’
Someone pushed me out of the way, and Markham, appearing out of nowhere, shouted, ‘Max. Go,’ and raced past me. He too was armed.
I flew back towards Dieter, still standing in the entrance to Number Five. ‘Do something, Dieter. For God’s sake. Help them.’
‘I am helping them,’ he said, grimly and grabbed my arm, dragging me into the pod.
He shouted, ‘Door,’ and then the world went white.
But for all the wrong reasons.
I faltered to a halt and looked at them. ‘Tell me what happened next.’
Peterson stared at his lap for a moment and then said, ‘Max, I’m so sorry.’
I said, ‘No,’ because I think I thought if I didn’t accept it then it couldn’t be true. I even wished I’d never said anything and continued in my happy state of cotton wool-filled ignorance. For the rest of my life. For ever.
He said again, ‘I’m so sorry, Max, but yes.’
‘No, you’re wrong.’
‘We’re not wrong.’
‘You must be. It’s Leon – he always – he never… There’s been a stupid mistake. You’ve missed something. Have you searched everywhere? Have you…?’
‘Max, there’s nothing left.’
‘I don’t understand. What do you mean, nothing left?’
‘Ronan had explosives. They went off. They destroyed him and his pod. He’s gone for ever.’
‘And Leon?’
‘They were too close, Max. Which we think was what Ronan intended. They were closing in. He probably had only one jump left and he couldn’t get away and so he jumped here, fully intending to do as much damage as possible.’
Three birds with one stone.
‘That’s what he meant, isn’t it? Three birds with one stone. Leon. Ian. And me.’
His face said there was more.
‘Tell me.’
‘Markham didn’t escape the blast, either.’
Too late, I remembered Markham, pushing me back to safety and running towards Ronan, gun drawn. Doing his job. He was doing his job and he died for it. With Leon. And Ian. But, sadly, not me.
I couldn’t take it in. ‘All of them. All three of them? All dead?’
He nodded.
‘And I lived,’ I said, bitterly.
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because … I know. I’ve been here and I know what you’re thinking and you can’t think that, Max. Not for one moment. You mustn’t. You have a little boy. You have duties and responsibilities. Dr Bairstow is devastated. The unit is in pieces. We stand or fall with you. I stand or fall with you. If anything should happen to you … I know how you feel. Many things have ended. Gone for ever. And carrying on without them seems too heavy a burden to bear. But you must, Max. We both must. Neither of us has the luxury of falling apart at the moment.’
Nurse Fortunata came in. She was carrying a tray of tea. Now I knew why there was no Hunter.
Dr Stone looked from one to the other of us. ‘If you can truthfully assure me that both of you are as well as could be expected, then I’ll leave you alone for an hour or so. Please use the time to talk to one another. Max, you need have no concerns over Matthew. He knows there’s been an accident in Hawking, but no more. He has no reason to assume his father was ever here. He’s happy and busy with Miss Lingoss. I advise you leave him with her for a day or so.’
Peterson nodded. ‘He couldn’t be in better hands, Max.’
I nodded. ‘I know. And you’re right. I will tell him. But not now.’
‘No, definitely not now. Give it a day or so.’
Actually, I never told him. I just kept putting it off. I told myself I needed to get on grip on things myself first of all, so I could deal with his questions and emotions. Then I thought I’d put it off until after Hastings. Which made sense. And then after Hastings, summer was coming and he seemed happy and somehow the moment was never quite right and so on and so on.
He never asked what had happened in Hawking. It wasn’t that he was incurious. He was very curious. Almost terminally so sometimes, according to Miss Lingoss, but I think, in his past life, he’d been discouraged from asking questions. Probably quite brutally discouraged. So he shut up, watched what was going on around him, took it all in and kept it all to himself. Occasionally I wondered about this, but he seemed happy, so I dodged the issue and told myself the right moment would present itself. One day.
They discharged me after a day or two. I collected Matthew from Miss Lingoss and made a pathetic stab at resuming a normal life. I kept us both busy. We had our daily routines and then in the evening there was television, his beloved jigsaws, a book at bedtime and his Time Map. I made sure there were little treats occasionally. I took him into town and we sat in the park and fed the ducks. At least, we did once I’d persuaded him to take out the bread he’d hidden in his pockets. The ducks were grateful and we had a Knickerbocker Glory afterwards, so everyone was a winner that day.
I’ve always been good at compartmentalising. You take the stuff you want and lay it out on the mantelpiece of your mind, all ready to be looked at and enjoyed in those quiet moments. The stuff you don’t want – and doesn’t that increase as the years go by? – gets shoved in a dark room somewhere at the back of your min
d. To be forgotten. Slam the door. Turn the key. Walk away. It works for me.
I couldn’t escape completely, of course. The day I left Sick Bay, Dr Bairstow sent for me.
He looked dreadful. Worse than me and I wasn’t looking good these days. Leon had been his long-time friend. Ian Guthrie and Markham had both been with him on the day he first walked through the front doors of St Mary’s.
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘Good morning, Max. How are you?’
‘Absolutely fine, sir, thank you.’
He had the big screen set up at his briefing table.
Gesturing, he said, ‘It’s taken a while, but the technical section has finally been able to restore a very little of the damaged footage from the cameras in Hawking. This is entirely your decision, of course, but we are now able to see exactly what happened. I’ve viewed the tapes. Several times, in fact. Do you wish to see them yourself? Please do not feel uncomfortable about saying no.’
I thought. Did I want to see them? Did I want to see Leon and Guthrie die? Or Markham, racing to help with no thought for his own safety. Did I want to see that?
Someone once asked me why I do this job. Why I – all of us – turn up at some of History’s most gruesome moments and watch people die? I had replied that we should never turn away. That by turning away from those unpleasant events does not mean they cease to happen. These were three of the people I loved best in all the world. The least I could do was bear witness to their deaths. After all, didn’t most of my job consist of watching people die?
‘Yes, sir. I want to see.’
He gestured and we sat at his table. I remember how quiet his room was. All the familiar noises of St Mary’s just seemed to fade away.
The screen blinked into life and, suddenly, I was back in Hawking, looking down from an unfamiliar angle.
The quality wasn’t too bad. I clearly saw Number Five materialise. I saw my team depart, arguing. They passed out of shot.
I saw Dieter go in, and for a few minutes nothing happened. The picture jumped a couple of times and then I appeared in the doorway.
I saw myself look around, say something to Dieter, heft my bag to a more comfortable position, and set off down the hangar towards the far doors and Sick Bay.
The image jumped again and suddenly, every light was flashing on and off in agitation. The soundtrack was crackly, but I could hear the alarms going off.
The picture jumped badly as the blast doors crashed together.
I saw Ronan’s pod materialise from nowhere. Right slap bang in the central gangway between the pods. Between Number Three on the right and Number Four on the left. TB2 was behind him.
His door opened and there he stood, looking around.
Dr Bairstow adjusted the controls slightly, and everything slowed down.
I saw myself stand, frozen again. I was doing a lot of that recently.
I saw Leon’s pod arrive, away to my left. The door slid open and there they were. Guthrie and Leon. Their visors were down, which I had forgotten. Such a simple detail, but I’d forgotten. Every time I had run the pictures through my memory, I’d been able to see their faces, even though I knew I hadn’t – if you know what I mean. Just another example of my memory playing tricks on me.
I could see Ronan stand quite still. I peered closely at the screen and could swear he was smiling. Then he turned his head and saw me standing stock still a little way off.
‘Excellent. Three birds with one stone.’ I could hear the words quite distinctly.
The picture broke up and when it reassembled itself again, Markham was appearing from nowhere. I never did establish where he’d come from. He was just there, moving fast.
He tore past me, giving me a shove to get me moving. I couldn’t make out his words, but that must have been when he was telling me to get out.
Leon and Guthrie stood as I’d last seen them, two or three steps away from their pod, thinking they had control of the situation. Until Ronan opened his hands and revealed his intentions.
The picture jumped again and then I was racing down the hangar towards Dieter, who grabbed my arm as I passed, and yanked me inside the pod. I saw the door close.
I saw Ronan say something. Sound quality was not so good now.
Ronan turned directly towards the cameras, smiled and bowed, his arms held wide. He kissed his hand to the camera.
And then – one after the other – like a juggler at the circus – he casually tossed the two blinking devices high into the air.
And now it was just a blur of motion. And then everything went black. For five or six seconds, this time, and when eventually it was restored, there was nothing like the clarity there had been before.
Actually, there wasn’t anything there that had been before. The original camera must have been destroyed in the blast because this one had a different point of view. This was the one from Leon’s office down at the other end of the hangar. The picture was very grainy, due, in no small part, to the swirling mass of dust and dirt inside the hangar.
But not all the dust and dirt in the world could conceal the damage. There was no sign anywhere of Leon’s or Ronan’s pods. Just a huge crater in the concrete floor. TB2 was a mangled wreck. A large lump of it was embedded in Number Seven. Number Eight had been blown off its plinth and slammed back into the hangar wall. As had Three. Four was completely destroyed. Shattered pieces of twisted metal lay everywhere. Number Five, still with me and Dieter inside, lay on its side, half on and half off its plinth.
Everything was gone. Nothing was left alive. The only movement was the clouds of dust and smoke swirling around the hangar before being sucked upwards through the gaping hole that had been the roof.
I swallowed. I was looking at the stuff of nightmares. Hawking was devastated. Just like me. Just like my life.
The whole roof was completely gone. Just like Leon. And Guthrie. And Markham.
I heard Ronan’s voice. ‘No Maxwell. You’re going to live. Everyone else in your world will die but you’ll live on. You’ll look back on today and wish I had killed you.’
Hawking had been built like a fireworks factory, with strong walls and a weak roof, so that in the event of any explosions, the blast wouldn’t spread outwards, but would be channelled harmlessly up through the roof. Because roofs can be replaced. And electrics. And pods. And equipment. Everything could be replaced. Except for Guthrie. And Markham. And Leon. They were gone for ever. Blown out of existence.
‘You’ll look back on today and wish I had killed you.’
I blinked, trying to see through the cloud of brownish yellow dust and smoke swirling upwards, taking with it everything that was left of Leon. Somewhere in all that murk, his scattered atoms and molecules were about to begin a new journey. Making their lonely way around the universe. On their way to become something else. In the fullness of time they might become a tiny part of a new star. Or a new planet. Or a new mountain. Or a new person, even. But no matter how long they travelled and no matter how long the universe continued, they would never again assemble in the combination that had been Leon Farrell.
On that bright sunny morning, I stared at the blurred picture and finally accepted that, dead though he might be, Ronan had won.
I don’t know for how long I sat there. I think it was some considerable time. At some point, Dr Bairstow had switched off the screen and was watching me.
I took a deep shuddering breath. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to expect me to say anything.
‘Listen to me Max. You and I have known each other for a very long time now. You may be wondering why I wanted you to watch that. You must understand that, no matter how painful it is to accept, Leon is dead. I know you well. Don’t tell me that somewhere, deep down, you weren’t convinced that somehow, against all the possibilities, Leon had not been killed. To continue to harbour such false hope is futile.’
He was right. I hadn’t even realised I was doing it, but I hadn’t accepted Leon was dead. A small part of me
was still expecting the knock on the door that would tell me there had been some dreadful mistake and that they were all alive. Was that why I hadn’t told Matthew his father was dead? Because, deep down, I hadn’t really believed it?
He continued. ‘It would have eaten away at you and prevented you continuing with your life. Sooner or later – and you know as well as I, Max, that sooner is usually better than later – you must accept the fact that Leon is dead. That they are all dead.’
I nodded. The silence in his room was very heavy.
I sighed. ‘Ronan got them, sir.’
‘I prefer to think that they got him.’
I shook my head. ‘Too high a price.’
‘They didn’t think so. Neither did Mr Markham who died doing his duty.’
He sat in silence for a very long time. ‘They were almost the last you know. There’s only Mr Evans left.’
‘The last, sir?’
‘The last of those who walked through the front doors with me the day I opened St Mary’s. Guthrie, Murdoch, Ritter, Randall, Weller, Evans and Markham. Good men all of them. But yes, Max, for once we find ourselves in complete agreement. Too high a price.’
He looked out of the window.
I was suddenly aware of why the silence was so … silent. ‘Your clock has stopped, sir.’
‘What?’
‘Your clock, sir. It’s stopped.’
‘Oh yes, I’m afraid it has. It has been on its last legs for some time. I believe that the blast has dislodged or damaged some vital part.’
I knew how it felt.
‘You should fix it, sir.’
‘Should I? Why is that?’
‘Markham always said it gave him something to focus on when he was being … the object of your displeasure. It wasn’t that he wasn’t listening – although we both know he probably wasn’t – it just took his mind off things. It’s a kind of tradition with us, sir. We stand in your office, listen to your clock, accept our punishment, and survive to return another day.’