The Fall

25

The three of them walked back into the town centre. Even though Sam didn’t know the town particularly well, he was already noticing that the Casterton of 1946 was very different from the Casterton of 1999 and 1978.

It looked a good deal smaller, for one thing. Huddled in backstreets were cramped-looking rows of terraced houses, which Jud told him would be demolished in the 1960s to make way for a supermarket and car park. Children played in the streets with wooden spinning tops, iron hoops, skipping ropes. Three girls had chalked out a hopscotch pattern on the pavement and were skipping along it – at least hopscotch hadn’t changed that much down through the years.

The buildings were a grimy black, whereas in 1999 the stonework had been sandblasted clean to its original golden honey tones.

The reason for the grime became apparent when Sam noticed a cloud of black smoke and steam appear above the rooftops with a whooshing sound.

‘Ah, the age of steam,’ Carswell said. ‘You’d think it impossible for people to get so sentimental over such filthy machines.’

Sam usually found himself bristling at most of Carswell’s remarks, but when he saw the steam-powered loco puffing noisily out from behind the station buildings he had to agree. The engine was black from the encrusted soot; only the silvery piston rods driving the wheels looked remotely clean.

As it passed by along its track, unburnt coal dust drizzled down from the sky onto them. Carswell clicked his tongue as he brushed black specks from the shoulders of his linen jacket. ‘As I said, filthy machines. Now, shall we try and find our mysterious Mr Rolle?’

He strolled on ahead, looking like a tourist, part curious, part disgusted by what he saw in a foreign town.

Sam saw Jud shake his head after the man.

The commercial areas of town were an ants’ nest of activity. This was an age when muscle power was the main way to move materials around the factory yards. And with labour still comparatively cheap, the places swarmed with men. The sounds of the town were pretty much the same as in any modern town: voices, car motors, a dog barking, even music from a car radio. The main difference, Sam noticed, was the whistling. The entire male population, from boys to old men, whistled furiously wherever they went, whatever they did. All seemed to be in competition with each other to whistle the most cheerful-sounding tune the loudest.

By the time they reached the shops in the High Street, Sam’s ears were ringing. Judd paused by an evening-newspaper vendor shouting the name of his paper on a street corner. It came out as ‘Ee-poe!’ but Sam saw the name on the board was Evening Post. Jud smiled, and Sam noticed a spark of excitement flare in his eye. ‘22^nd May 1946. So the paper that wrapped those fish and chips wasn’t too far out.’

The excitement in Jud’s eye grew more intense. He stopped on the pavement, rubbing his jaw and looking up at the town hall clock.

‘Five past five.’ He continued to rub his jaw as if working out some mental equation that fascinated and yet somehow scared him too. ‘You know, I could make it. I really could.’

‘Make what?’ Sam asked bemused.

‘Yes, what are you talking about?’ Carswell snapped. ‘Are we supposed to be finding this Rolle chap, or what?’

‘Yes… yes, of course.’ Jud sounded distracted. ‘But there’s somewhere I need to go first.’

‘Uh.’ Carswell closed his eyes and took a deep breath as if trying to master an anger that raged inside him. ‘You do what you have to do. I’ll look for Rolle.’

Sam said, ‘If you find him, ask him to come back to the car. We’ll meet you there if we don’t see you before.’

‘I’ll bring him back.’ Carswell smiled and patted the gun in his pocket. ‘I can be very persuasive.’

‘Dear God,’ Jud said, shocked. ‘Don’t pull that thing on him. He might be the only chance we have.’

Carswell sniffed dismissively. ‘If we don’t meet before, we’ll rendezvous back at the car at seven.’ With that he sauntered away among the people on the pavement.

‘Damn him,’ Jud said under his breath. ‘Damn and blast him.’

‘Well, let’s hope we run into Rolle before he does. That is, if he is here.’

‘I think all we can do is hope to God he is.’

Sam noticed that Jud glanced repeatedly up at the town hall clock.

‘There was something you wanted to do,’ Sam prompted.

‘If there’s time.’

‘There’s plenty of time. The problem is that it seems to be all pretty much cockeyed at the moment.’

‘True…’ Jud paused, as if reaching a difficult decision. ‘Sam, my mother lived in this town in 1946. In fact, she’d lived here all her life until 1947 when she married my father.’

‘Uh-oh, Jud.’ Sam guessed what the man would say next. ‘Is it wise to go find your mother? I take it you weren’t even born by 1946 if your parents didn’t marry until the next year?’

‘I bowed in during 1948.’

‘But what on Earth will you say to her? You can hardly march up to the house and say: “Good afternoon. I’m your unborn son. I’ve just popped back from the future to say hi.”’

‘No, Sam, I can’t. But, you see, my father died of a stroke in 1990. That was quick. He went out like a light when he was mowing the lawn. But my mother died by inches after that. She just sat in her living room and waited to join him. Within 12 months of his death she’d developed cancer in the – you know, down below… I just watched her shrivel away to nothing over the next couple of years.’ He looked searchingly up at the clock again. ‘She died on Christmas day in 1993.’

‘I’m sorry, Jud. That must have been hard to take.’

‘It was. But the hardest thing was that I never told them that I loved them. Or thanked them for what they had done for me. It’s ridiculous, really. But it struck me so hard the day of my mother’s funeral that all my adult life I’d never, ever said, “Mum, I love you,” nor said it to my father, either. Not once. Or ever even acknowledged I was grateful for the sacrifices that—’

He stopped suddenly. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. ‘Will you look at that? Horse-drawn drays. Look at the size of the shire horses.’

Sam realised Jud wasn’t normally one to allow himself to display emotion, and now he was quickly changing the subject as the shire horses lumbered past, pulling the cart carrying barrels of beer.

As Jud watched it pass by with a close interest that was obviously designed to cloak his embarrassment at becoming emotional, Sam said quietly. ‘Sure, Jud. It couldn’t do any harm to say hello.’ He shot Jud a smile. ‘Say you’re a long lost cousin from Australia or something and that you just happened to drop by.’

Jud looked relieved. ‘It’s along this way. We’ll need to be quick.’

Mystified, Sam followed. Jud still glanced up at the clock in the town hall tower. Why did they have to be there at a particular time? What was so special about 5.15 on 22^nd May 1946?

‘Your mother lived up this way?’ Sam asked as he followed Jud, who now seemed preoccupied with some plan of his own.

‘No. She lived in one of the little terrace houses not far from where we parked the car.’

‘So why are we heading in this direction?’

Jud opened the cardboard wallet he carried and handed Sam a black-and-white photograph.

Sam recognised it as the same one that hung on the cabin wall of Jud’s narrow boat. He must have slipped it out of the frame just before they left for town.

Sam Baker studied the print as he followed. It showed a young couple sitting astride a motorbike. They both smiled brightly into the camera. Of course, then neither wore helmets. The woman on the pillion wore trousers, a tweed jacket and a silk scarf. The man, grinning hugely, with goggles pushed up onto his forehead, wore a leather jacket. There was no mistaking the family resemblance.

‘My parents on the day they became engaged,’ Jud said, hurrying more quickly now along the street that was crowded with workers going home from local factories and offices. ‘Look at the back of the photograph, Sam.’

Sam flipped it over. Pencilled on the back were the words: Jeremy Campbell & Liz Fretwell (and Barney) – our very special day, 22^nd May 1946.

The date was obvious.

‘So they were engaged today?’ Sam was starting to get breathless.

‘They were.’

Sam looked back at the photo. ‘But who’s Barney?’

‘The motorbike. My father saved for it all the five years he was in the army fighting the Nazis. It became a kind of holy grail for him. He used to tell himself with every week that he survived all the bullets and shells that it brought him one week closer to buying the motorbike; it’s a 500cc AJS, which was the Rolls-Royce or Cadillac of motorbikes at the time.’

‘He must have really loved it.’

‘He did, but he loved something else more. He sold the bike to pay for the wedding.’

‘But I still don’t understand where we’re going.’

‘Look at the photograph. Do you see what looks like a castle turret in the background?’

‘I see it.’

‘Now look up this street. What do you see?’

‘Hell, yes. The castle in the photograph.’

‘It’s not a real castle. It’s a 19^th Century folly called the Rook, built by a certain Lord St Thomas, a chess fanatic.’

‘But why—?’

‘Why now? Why dash up the street at 5.25?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look at the Rook again. No, the one in the photograph. There’s a clock set in the wall. What time does it say?’

‘Half-past five.’

Jud’s eyes blazed as he shot Sam a big happy schoolboy grin. ‘That gives us just less than five minutes for me to say hello to my parents.’

Sam paused. This could go badly wrong. He was going to say something to Jud, but the man was already hurrying up the street towards where his parents might already be posing for the photograph. Jud half ran with his head down as though, if he had to, he’d charge like a bull through the crowds of workers streaming home. Sam saw that nothing was going to deflect the man now.

Sighing, he followed. He realised full well that the next ten minutes or so could become rather complex.

Nicole Wagner opened her eyes. Above her, branches. Leaves glowed a brilliant green as the sun shone through them. A bird sang in a tree nearby.

It all seemed so peaceful that she could lie there all—

Oh, Christ.

Suddenly she remembered and sat up straight, her heart cracking so hard against her ribs it felt as if it wanted to make a mad dash for freedom all on its own.

‘Bostock.’

‘Lady,’ a voice said calmly. ‘If that man is Bostock, then he is dead mutton now.’

First she looked across to the figure of Bostock lying flat on his back on the grass. His face and chest were red with blood. The spilled intestines rested in a tangled heap on his legs, like a nest of pink and white snakes.

Then she peered up at the man kneeling beside her. She stared awestruck for a moment. His handsome face, framed by blond curls, was astonishingly angelic. He wore what she guessed was a medieval costume. Brown cloak, dark greenish leggings or hose, with a claret-coloured tunic beneath the cloak itself.

He gazed down at her with his angelic face. ‘What strange clothes you wear… Are you a tumbler?’

She looked at him dumbly.

‘A tumbler? An acrobat?’ he suggested in a pleasant voice that was as gentle as a parent talking to a baby. He looked into her eyes. ‘Pardon me, are you quite yourself yet?’

‘Of course she isn’t. That gorilla tried to kill her.’

‘Hush, demon head.’

She looked round startled. Where had the second voice come from?

But with the exception of Bostock’s corpse, she was alone with the angelic man.

‘Smelling salts. Hold smelling salts under her nose.’

Startled, she looked round again. The second voice seemed to come from thin air. What was more, it was a strange, croaky voice. The kind of voice that belonged to someone who might have gargled with sulphuric acid to ruin their vocal cords. And there was a Cockney quality to it.

‘Smelling salts, I said,’ came the voice again. ‘She needs smelling salts. D’ya hear me through them pretty-boy curls?’

‘I have no smelling salts. Besides, the lady appears well. Her cheeks are rosy. She is awake.’ Although the man’s blue eyes still studied her face with a concern she found astonishingly gentle, he wasn’t speaking to her but to his invisible companion.

‘Let me see her,’ came the rasping cockney voice.

‘No.’

‘Let me see her.’

‘Not yet.’

‘I’ll turn my head round if you don’t – and bite!’

‘Oh, very well.’

The blond-haired man’s eyes fixed on hers. ‘I’m sorry about this. But I must do as this demon head asks.’

‘Demon head – ha!’ the Cockney voice exclaimed dismissively. ‘I’m as flesh-and-blood as he is.’

The man stood up and untied a cord beneath his cloak. Alarmed, Nicole climbed to her own feet and backed away.

‘I’m sorry, lady. Please do not be too disconcerted by what you see.’

He gripped a side of the cloak in one hand and lifted it to expose one side of his stomach.

Nicole wasn’t sure what to expect; she looked down at his stomach, startled. The claret-coloured tunic came down over his waist to reach his upper thighs.

Then she noticed two things almost simultaneously. One, the tunic bulged just above his right hip, more or less where the appendix would be. A large, rounded bulge almost as if he’d concealed a bowl beneath the tunic.

Then, secondly, she saw a strip had been cut from the material to form a diagonal slot maybe six inches long and little more than two inches wide. Through the slot she could see the colour of skin.

She was as much embarrassed as shocked, wondering what the man was trying to show her. She angled her head to one side so her eyes would be level with the diagonal slot cut in the tunic.

Her breath caught in her throat when she realised she was looking at a pair of eyes.

And those eyes, staring wide and brown from the flesh of the man’s stomach, looked steadily back into hers.

‘There they are.’ Jud’s voice was hushed with amazement. ‘There they are.’ He looked back at Sam, his face shining with wonder. ‘Those are my parents…’

Sam had found himself expecting Jud to rush forward, calling wildly to them – and probably scaring them half to death in the process.

Instead, he stopped 30 or so paces away.

Here they were already on the edge of town. The road rose up a slight incline. At one side were large detached houses, homes to the upwardly mobile residents of Casterton. On the other side of the road was a hill on which stood the mock-castle tower of the Rook. Its clock announced it was now barely two minutes to half-past five. The sun shone brightly.

Sam looked down at the photograph in his hand showing Jud’s parents, then in their twenties, sitting astride the motorbike and smiling their youthful happiness at the world.

Sam glanced back to the grass verge at the side of the road. A motorbike – the same motorbike, he saw – was propped up on its stand. A girl in a brown tweed jacket and silk scarf posed by the wall, smiling brightly. A man in a leather jacket photographed her with a chunky box of a camera. Although they were too far away to make out individual words, Sam heard the couple laughing as they talked. They were in love. There was no doubting that.

‘Jud, wait…’ Sam said, but Jud was already walking forward. He still stayed on the opposite side of the street, but Sam watched him gazing in awe at the young couple.

Sam followed the man, feeling as awkward as he’d ever felt. He didn’t want to intrude on what must be a deeply personal meeting.

Again Sam found himself cringing at what Jud might blurt out. But Jud walked forward slowly, holding his emotions in check. To a dispassionate observer he could have been just a passer-by showing an interest in the camera.

At that moment, Jud’s father (or father-to-be, more accurately) glanced back after taking the photograph.

He held up his free hand to attract Jud’s attention. Then he pointed at the camera, then at the woman now standing by the bike, then at himself.

Sam saw Jud give a slow nod.

There’s no reason to rush forward and try to talk Jud out of this. He knows what he’s doing, Sam thought with a sense of satisfaction that felt so strange, and yet so heart-warming. This had to be the same feeling that a parent experienced when they saw their child ride a bike without stabilisers for the first time. First would come the anxiety that there would be some hideous calamity as they let go of the child who would peddle furiously away. Then would come a spreading warmth as they realised, both surprised and pleased, that their son or daughter wasn’t going to fall off in a bloody tangle of broken limbs after all.

This situation called for a sense of balance, too; of almost defying gravity. A wrong word would lead to embarrassment, if not out-and-out chaos. But Jud was smiling, making small talk about the camera, then the motorbike.

Now Sam stayed where he was on the pavement, leaving Jud to that curious moment of intimacy with his parents, or parents-to-be, who were still in their twenties.

Sam realised he was watching something close to a miracle. Well, yes, as-near-as-damn-it it was a miracle.

Most people’s memories of their late parents are often darkly coloured; of mothers and fathers shrivelled with age, withering away in a hospital bed.

Jud was unique. This would be the last time he saw his parents. But he was seeing them in the blooming-rose tints of youth, with nearly all their adult lives in front of them.

Sam watched as the two climbed astride the motorbike, then smiled with sheer happiness at the camera as Jud clicked the shutter. At that moment the clock struck the half-hour. As the vibrations of the bell faded away, a tingling sensation rose through Sam’s chest, up his neck and across his scalp.

He glanced down at the photograph in his hand, which was a perfect copy of the real-life scene taking place in front of him.

After taking back the camera from Jud, the father shook the son’s hand, a friendly smile lighting his face. Seconds later, the couple rode the motorbike away along the road.

Jud watched it go. He was still standing there when the sound of the bike had dwindled into the distance and Sam could hear it no more.

‘Nicole. Where have you been? Have you seen Bostock?’ Lee called the words as he ran to her across the car park. Behind him was Sue in her Stan Laurel costume.

‘I’ve been in there,’ Nicole jerked her head back in the direction of the wood.

‘Bostock?’

‘Yes, I’ve seen Bostock. He’s dead.’

‘Dead?’

‘Disembowelled, throat cut.’

‘How? Did you—’

‘With a sword, and, no, I didn’t do it… and don’t ask who: a stranger. A very strange stranger.’

She didn’t stop walking until she reached the machine that vended soft drinks by the visitors’ centre. Then she aimed a kick at it. Satisfyingly, she heard the rolling boom and clunk of a can rolling into the dispenser.

She opened it.

Still cold. Thank God, even though there was no electricity now. Power cables only ran out as far as the boundary of this chunk of 1999 ground.

She looked at Lee and Sue, who were watching her with a curious kind of expectancy, as if at any moment she was going to scream shrilly, then run down to the river to drown herself, unhinged by her experiences. But inside she felt a peculiar calmness.

Maybe this is shock, she told herself. Well, if it is, at least it’ s shielding me from the increasingly surreal experiences. The memory of what had happened ten minutes earlier was still registering at full strength inside her head.

Every time she blinked she saw Bostock lying there with his guts heaped on his legs. Equally strong was the memory of the blond-haired man in medieval dress, complete with a second pair of eyes that peered from his stomach.

All right! Pick the bones out of that one, Salvador Dali… And she remembered how the angelic-faced stranger had kissed her hand before running lightly away into the wood.

Taking the drink, she headed for the shade of an oak tree at the edge of the car park. She was aware, in a distant well-it’s-got-nothing-to-do-with-me kind of way, that Lee and Sue were firing questions at her, mainly centring on how she felt, and was she okay?

But all she wanted to do was sit in the shade of the tree for a while and drink the Dr Pepper.

(But, oh, how she normally hated Dr Pepper. To her tastes it was a viscous drink, so overloaded with sugar it left an unpleasant film on her teeth. But hey! she thought. These aren’t normal times. God or the Devil’s gone and rewritten the reality code. Most important to her right now was that the can was ice cold in her hand, so that was okay; that was very okay.)

As she walked toward the tree, she scanned the edge of the wood, wondering what other marvels it would spew out. What next, after the man with eyes in his stomach? Cavorting men with goaty legs and hooves? Centaurs with the bodies of horses, yet with the smooth-muscled torsos of men? And why not mermaids frolicking in the river, splashing everyone on the bank with their fishy tails?

She knew it all could happen. No matter how surreal or bizarre; they were falling into a world full of wonders, miracles and monsters. The conviction was rooted as solidly in her as the two eyes were rooted in the man’s stomach.

Oh, crap…

She needed that sit-down in the shade. That long sit-down, with the earth rock-solid beneath her. The world was turning grey around her; her tongue felt as if fur had grown over it.

She sat with her back to the tree trunk. But not before she noticed that the front wheel and handlebars of a bicycle protruded from the solid timber.

A bike that wanted to be a tree?

Or was it a tree that wanted to be a bike?

Never mind, bikes fused with trees were small fry. She could handle that easy as ABC.

She drank deeply. Then she closed her eyes and waited for her self, the inner ‘her’, to find its centre once more.

Then perhaps the world wouldn’t look so crazy when she opened her eyes again.

When Sam walked back into Casterton he couldn’t believe his eyes.

‘Well, will you just take a look at our Mr Carswell,’ Jud said heavily. ‘Doesn’t he look the proper English gentleman?’

Part-way along the High Street stood an old cottage set back from the road. In the front garden were half a dozen tables covered with tablecloths that were gleaming white in the early-evening sun. A sign nailed to a tree in the garden ran:

And chalked underneath was the stern command: Ration books required for full meals. Sugar subject to availability. Gentlemen who spit will not be served.

Red writing on a piece of card hanging from the gate stated: YES! WE HAVE BANANAS! (ONE PER CUSTOMER ONLY): the whole tone of that particular sign screamed with a giddy excitement. And when Sam looked at the customers sitting at the tables, he saw they were indeed all eating bananas, a fruit that would have been scarcer than Dodo eggs during the war. Now, in post-war Casterton, still grimly shackled to tight rationing, eating a banana was a serious business. They were served finely sliced in dishes. The clientele, wielding forks, ate them carefully one morsel at a time, the expressions on their faces peculiarly intense as they savoured the unusual flavour.

Carswell, however, ate sandwiches made from equally-thinly-sliced bread that was much closer to grey than white.

He waved a hand, inviting them to sit with him.

‘These are unfeasibly disgusting; the cucumber has the texture of recycled latex,’ he said, dropping the sandwich back onto the plate. ‘But you’re welcome to take tea with me.’ He clicked his fingers at a girl of around 14 in a white apron. ‘Two more cups and another pot of your tea. Thank you very much, Jenny.’

As she quickly hurried away, he gave one of his tight little smiles that was as cold as a January morning and murmured, ‘What I can say, unequivocally, is that the service is as keen as the tea. I recommend you take it with plenty of milk. There’s no sugar, I’m afraid. The girl was telling me that the ship carrying the sugar into Scarborough harbour hit a stray mine. Consequently the ocean is a sight more sweet than this Victoria sponge cake.’

Jud frowned. ‘We don’t have any 1940s currency. How did you—?’

Carswell held up the little finger of his left hand. ‘I pawned my pinkie ring. Don’t worry, it’s hallmarked 1906 so it won’t alert the man to the fact that we hail, in fact, from the latter part of this century.’ He spoke in that nonchalant way of his, not caring if he was overheard or not. ‘Have you two completed your own mysterious assignment?’

‘Yes,’ Sam said.

‘Nothing too outrageously purple, I trust? No WAAFs ravished senseless?’

Coolly, Sam said, ‘Jud wanted to see his parents.’

‘Oh? Sweet.’ Carswell said the word ‘sweet’ softly but somehow managed to infuse into it enough sarcasm, disdain and contempt to make Sam grit his teeth. Carswell made it clear enough that he dismissed the pair of them as over-sentimental imbeciles.

Sam was tempted to tell Carswell in short bludgeoning sentences that not everyone was a flinty-hearted emotional retard, but he stopped himself. It would be wasted on the cynical Carswell.

As the waitress set the cups and saucers in front of Sam and Jud, Carswell said, ‘While you were involved with your own doubtlessly important mission, I’ve been making enquiries among the locals.’ He dabbed his mouth on a cotton napkin. ‘Specifically, I’ve been asking about any tramps who might frequent the area.’

‘And?’

‘And there are three. They rejoice under the names of Muddy Joe, Toad Gilbert and Mr Sixpence. God knows what their real names are. The townsfolk gave them those colourful nicknames years ago.’

‘Did you get any descriptions?’

‘I’ve done better than that. Tea, anyone?’

Carswell poured the tea, his eyes boring furiously into the brown liquid that streamed from spout to cup.

‘Remember, gentlemen,’ Carswell said, ‘plenty of milk, otherwise your eyes are sure to water, I’m afraid.’ He sipped his own tea. ‘Now… Casterton’s three vagrants. Toad Gilbert is actually just across there in the market square. You can see him foraging in the market for spoilt fruit and vegetables.’

Jud craned his head to see.

‘Don’t bother,’ Carswell said. ‘He’s not our man. He looks around 70 and is clearly as senile as the day is long. And we can dismiss Muddy Joe as well. He’s of African descent and bald as a badger.’ Carswell mused as he sipped his tea. ‘Muddy Joe? Clearly no-one in 1946 was ticklish about being accused of racial prejudice.’

‘Well, that leaves the one called Mr Sixpence. Have you found him?’

Carswell clicked his fingers and the waitress ran obediently across to him. ‘Jenny. Mr Sixpence. What does he look like?’

‘Oh, him again, sir?’ The girl smiled shyly. ‘Why on Earth do you want to hear about him again, sir?’

‘This is for my friends here. I’ve already explained we’re a team of doctors researching the terrible, terrible conditions these gentlemen of the road have to endure. Now… Mr Sixpence, Jenny?’

‘Well, he wears these bright orange overalls, or flying suit, I’m not sure which. Galoshes. He’s got ginger hair – all this way and that.’ She gestured near her head to describe someone with wild, stuck-out hair. ‘They call him Mr Sixpence because whenever you see him he says, “Sixpence. Got a sixpence?” And you hear him babbling away to himself and he says…’

The waitress continued talking as Carswell looked at Jud, then at Sam, and raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘We’ve found our man.’

It didn’t take long to find Rolle. They saw him walking along one of Casterton’s side-streets with a large brown paper bag in his hand. His red hair was a tangle of corkscrews and the knees and elbows of his orange boiler suit were green with grass stains. Sam wondered if the man had been enthusiastically prostrating himself before the Almighty in a meadow somewhere.

Carswell didn’t bother with niceties. He simply grabbed Rolle by the elbow as he walked by. He could have been a plain-clothes detective arresting a suspect.

‘Let him go, Carswell,’ Sam said. ‘He’s not under arrest.’

‘Well, if he’s our only hope of getting off this weird carnival ride back through time, I’m not letting him slip through our fingers.’

‘Carswell,’ said Jud, ‘we need Mr Rolle’s voluntary cooperation.’

Displeased, Carswell nevertheless gave a shrug that said clearly enough, ‘Okay, you think you know best, but don’t come running to me if he disappears.’

‘Mr Rolle,’ Sam said quickly. ‘Do you remember me?’

‘From the hole, from the Watchett Hole. I remember, I remember, I remember…’ He chanted the words in a pulsing rhythm that was as soft as it was fast. ‘I’ve told you, you have to get away from the hole. You’ll be integrated, you’ll be fused, you’ll be mashed if you don’t.’

‘Integrated?’ Sam remembered the man with the bird fused into his face; how both the man and the bird had screamed in agony. ‘You mean every time we make the time-jump, someone’s going to end up fused with whatever’s occupying the same space when they materialise?’

‘I do… and the time stream has become a leaky conduit – an oh-so-leaky conduit. Liminals are escaping. Are escaping out into the here and now.’ He gave a little chuckle, but his eyes were fixed and serious. ‘So how long – how long until Robin of Greenwood rides into the shopping malls of tomorrow-year? And – and how long until you find Caesar in McDonald’s? Big Mac, Blood Mac, Dead Mac. I’m sorry, my tongue is slippery as an eel: it escapes me so easily.’ He took a deep breath to steady himself. ‘Now my blood boils with salvatory… salvation; God-given salvatory tasks.’ He started to move away from them as if late for an important appointment. ‘I’ve work in the other places.’

‘Wait,’ Carswell said. ‘We haven’t finished with you yet. We need to know how to get off this damn conveyor belt back into history. What’s more, we want to return to our own time. 1999. Did you hear me? Nineteen-fucking-ninety-nine. I told you to wait!’

Muttering to himself, Richard Rolle backed along the street, eager to be on his way. Carswell didn’t hesitate; he grabbed the man by his arm to stop him going any farther. The bag slipped from his hand.

Sam looked down to see a dozen or more brown pill bottles spill from it. There were glass ampoules, too, filled with an amber liquid.

‘What have we here?’ Carswell said unpleasantly.

‘Please, dear heaven, dear sweet heaven, those are for my neighbours. I need them.’

‘What the hell is this nutcase talking about?’

‘Apologies, sir… When I am in the world of now, my tongue runs swiftly… so swiftly; swiftly ahead of my thoughts.’

Jud crouched down and started putting the ampoules back in the bag. He looked at the labels on the pill bottles. ‘Penicillin.’ He handed the bag back to Rolle.

‘Thank you, sir. These are needed most urgently. Most urgently, sir.’ He started to back away again, anxiously clutching the bag.

‘And just what are you doing with those?’ Carswell said. ‘You’ve enough to run your own dispensary with that lot.’

‘It’s no business of ours, Carswell,’ Jud said. ‘I imagine Mr Rolle has his own reasons.’

‘Indeed so, sir, indeed so, indeed…’

Carswell gave one of his irritated grunts. ‘We’ve spent all day looking for him! Just look at him. He’s a tramp. Nothing but a scruffy tramp, and as mad as a bloody hatter.’ Eyes burning furiously, his hand went to the gun in his pocket. For one crazy moment Sam thought the man would draw the gun and shoot Rolle dead in the street.

‘Wait,’ Jud said soothingly to Rolle. ‘I know you’re in a hurry. But we do need to talk to you. Believe me, it is important.’

‘No time. I’m terribly sorry,’ Rolle said quickly, running the words into a single stream of sound. ‘I need to hurry – rush, rush, rush. Babies are dying. All dying so quickly now. Buboes swelling up on them, here, here.’ With his free hand he pointed to his armpit, then to his groin.

‘Buboes?’ Jud said, astonished. ‘The penicillin is for them?’

‘Yes.’

‘Please. Won’t you let us help you?’

With a twitchy shake of his head Rolle said, ‘No… no.’

‘Can’t we take you where you want to go? We have a car.’

‘Hah.’ The sound was more a breathy expression of regret than a laugh. ‘Your car doesn’t go that far.’

‘Mr Rolle,’ Jud said. ‘Please, we do need your help. Can we meet you later? All we want to do is talk.’

The red-haired man looked at each in turn; he seemed nervous, even anxious. Sam was sure he’d see that jerky shake of the head again. No.

‘Well?’

This time they were rewarded with a single sharp nod. ‘St Jude’s. Eight o’clock.’

‘St Jude’s. Eight o’clock,’ Jud echoed, and nodded. ‘We’ll be there. Thank you.’

‘Are you sure we can’t take you somewhere in the car?’ Sam asked.

Again the twitchy shake of his head as Richard Rolle began to back away as if already he’d wasted far too much precious time. ‘I’m beginning the Jesus Prayer now. For me the way is made open by the Jesus Prayer.’

With that he turned and hurried away, the precious bag clutched to his chest. Sam could hear the ginger-haired man muttering quickly under his breath, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of…’

The voice faded away, drowned by the whoosh and roar of a steam engine pulling into the station.

Carswell fixed Sam then Jud with his piercingly angry eyes. His expression was the sourest Sam had seen so far.

‘Well, what a piece of carnival that was. What a waste of fucking time. We’d have had a more meaningful conversation with one of the monkeys down there at the bloody circus.’

Jud began calmly, ‘Richard Rolle is—’

‘Is bloody mad. It’s as obvious as the nose on your blasted face.’ Carswell slapped the pocket that carried the gun in a way that Sam could only describe as neurotic; dangerously neurotic at that. ‘Lunatic. He should be locked away. And there you two are, nice as pie, politely asking him to help you.’

‘Carswell,’ Jud began again, firmly but calmly. ‘Richard Rolle is a hermit and a mystic. That means he is a maverick, an outsider, he won’t behave as ordinary men and women behave. That doesn’t make him insane.’

‘It does in my book; at least, what I’ve witnessed.’ He forked his fingers towards his eyes as if about to gouge himself. ‘These two eyes tell me he’s completely insane. Did you hear how he talked? Did you hear that nonsense about the Jesus Prayer, and see the way he ran off muttering gibberish?’

Jud said, ‘The Jesus Prayer is a prayer from the Orthodox branch of Christianity. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God have mercy on me, a sinner.”’

‘You’re barmy, too.’

‘No. That is the prayer repeated by mystics over and over until they achieve an altered state of consciousness, or a trance if you like. All cultures have their own variant of this – in the East, mantras are chanted. Modern hypnotists repeat the same phrase over and over to induce a state of hypnosis.’

‘Oh, mesmerism is it, now? Fat lot of good that will do us, Campbell.’

‘You still don’t get it, do you?’ Jud’s eyes gleamed in a fixed way. ‘Already Rolle’s given us a clue; no, not just one, but several clues about how he can apparently travel through time at will. He does it through altering his own state of consciousness. What’s more, we’ve just seen him with bottles of penicillin. He’s talked about helping sick people suffering from buboes beneath the arms and in the groin.’

‘So?’

‘So those are symptoms of people suffering from what has to be bubonic plague.’ He looked Carswell in the eye. ‘Or what was more commonly known as the Black Death. Mr Carswell, I think we’ve just been privileged enough to meet our first genuine time traveller.’