Trace Memory

ELEVEN

The opening chords of T-Rex's '20th Century Boy' blasted into his ears as Jack Harkness walked down Carnaby Street on a late summer's morning in 1967. Never mind that the song would not be recorded for another six years, or that the device on which he was listening to it, the C-Fish X20, would not be invented for another six decades. Anachronisms weren't important to Jack, and the earphones were practically invisible so it wasn't as if anyone might notice. What mattered was that the song seemed right.

The C-Fish, a portable music player, had, along with the contents of his bag, been deposited in a locker at King's Cross by Jack himself a long time and many lives ago, back in the days when time was no barrier. He'd thought that both might come in handy one day, and he was right.

Looking around at the assorted mods and hippies — girls in fluorescent miniskirts, Union Flag-patterned waistcoats and baker-boy caps; men in flared jeans and paisley shirts made of cheesecloth — it struck Jack that immortality, rather than rendering life predictable, often made it even more surprising. A life stretched out for more than a century made changes that had happened quite gradually to the casual observer, seem sudden and revolutionary.

Only a few years ago, on his last visit, he had walked down this street to find it populated by austere tailors and nattily dressed jazz musicians looking for just the right threads. Now it was an explosion of garish, psychedelic colour, with music blaring from the open doors of almost every shop.

He wasn't simply there as a tourist or even an observer, however. Jack had a purpose that morning. There were questions to be answered. Somebody in London had been asking questions about Jack Harkness, and Jack was going to find out who.

He'd been in the city little more than three hours, but already he could sense that people were on to him. A car had tailed him across much of the city, a black Rover P6, driven by a man in a grey cap. Amateurs, Jack had thought. Whoever they were, travelling incognito was clearly not their forte. Still, for now he was in the clear. The streets of Soho were a good place to lose anyone who might be following you; a labyrinthine network of interconnecting thoroughfares and alleyways boxed in by the busy, traffic congested arteries of Shaftsbury Avenue, Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road. Here was a village within the city; a chaotic heart, beating to a syncopated rhythm, in the very centre of the metropolis.

His destination was a restaurant on Golden Square called Houghton's. In the vibrant, noisy kaleidoscope of Soho, it was an oasis of gentlemanly calm, a throwback to a bygone era. It was also the place where he would meet Hugo.

Hugo Faulkner was the third son of Baron Faulkner of Darrington, and was every bit the third son of a peer of the realm. While his older brothers had enjoyed illustrious military careers and were now major players in the City, Hugo was something of a black sheep; the decadent man about town, renowned for his lavish parties and almost bohemian lifestyle. He traded in antiquities and fine art, an almost respectable profession to any family except the Faulkners, who measured a man's worth in medals.

The restaurant itself had the feeling of an Edwardian time capsule: burgundy velvet and real Tiffany lampshades; a fog of cigar smoke clouding the ceiling, and a soundtrack of clinking cutlery and bullish voices. It was jarring to Jack, who had eaten in such places when they were the norm, rather than the exception, as if he had inadvertently stumbled into his own past. On his arrival at the restaurant, he was taken by the maître d' to a table in the far corner, where Hugo Faulkner was already waiting for him.

Jack was surprised by his appearance. The man's reputation had suggested something far less dapper. He'd expected long hair, a beard perhaps, and appropriated ethnic clothing, but was greeted instead by a very tall young man with foppish blond hair, dressed in a pinstripe suit and pink tie.

'Mr Faulkner?' said Jack.

Hugo stood, holding out his hand. 'Hugo, please. You must be Mr Williamson?'

'Tim.'

'Tim… Very pleased to meet you.' He shook Jack's hand with a weak grip and sat down again. 'Would you care for tea? Or coffee? Perhaps something stronger? They have a splendid 1948 Colheita, if you're a port-drinking man.'

'I'm fine,' said Jack. He was already opening the bag that he had carried through Soho, and lifting a small wooden box from inside.

Hugo's eyes lit up and he gasped with delight. 'Is that it?'

Jack nodded.

'This is it,' he said, placing the box on the table and opening it gently. Inside, wrapped in linen, was a thick, yellowing manuscript, dog-eared around its edges. The title page read:

Cardenio — C A Spanish Comedie by Messrs William Shaksper and John Fletcher

'My God…' said Hugo, reaching for it with both hands.

'Easy, tiger,' said Jack. 'It's over three hundred and fifty years old. Here, I've brought gloves.'

Jack handed him a pair of white cotton gloves. Hugo put them on and began delicately turning the pages.

'Yes yes,' he said. 'The handwriting certainly resembles Shakespeare's. Some of it… here for example… that's clearly Fletcher's work, but this… this is Shakespeare.'

'Impressed?' said Jack.

'Yes, I'm very impressed. If it's not too vulgar for me to jump to the matter of remuneration, how much were you asking? For the manuscript?'

'Three thousand,' said Jack, bluntly. 'Is that too much?'

Hugo laughed. 'Oh, I shouldn't think so,' he said. 'I've never been able to understand why it is some people struggle for money when there's so much of the stuff floating about. You simply need to know how to catch it, most of the time. Like collecting butterflies. Would you mind if I write it as a cheque? I don't tend to carry much cash around. Dirtiest thing you can touch, cash. All those hands, all their germs. Makes you shudder just to think about it.'

'A cheque's fine,' said Jack.

'OK,' said Hugo, producing a Coutt's chequebook and a fountain pen. 'Who should I make this out to? Timothy Williamson?'

'Yes,' said Jack, still forcing a smile.

'Or perhaps Jack Harkness?' said Hugo, and Jack's smile faded.

'What did you say?' he asked.

'Really,' said Hugo, continuing as if he hadn't said a thing, 'this is a remarkable find. Scholars have been arguing over Cardenio for centuries, and we'd quite safely assumed it was lost for eternity. Why should a reasonably obscure work survive so many floods, fires, and bombs? Why, if it were not that notable a play, should posterity have saved it? And yet here it is. Remarkable.'

'What did you say?' Jack asked again, more forcefully this time.

'I said it's remarkable that the play should have survived. Although I'm particularly curious because I happen to know that there was a surviving copy of Cardenio in London as recently as 1765, but that it was stolen from the home of Thomas Sheridan by a man claiming, rather ludicrously, to be a time agent.

A man by the name of Jack Harkness.'

Jack paused. Had his moment's caution been premature? Was it just Hugo's idea of a joke to call him by that name?

'Fancy that!' said Hugo. A time agent. Of all the things… Of course, Sheridan's words remained in private correspondence that I was lucky enough to come across a few years back. A secret auction in Bloomsbury. Sheridan thought this Harkness fellow to be a scoundrel and a liar, and so didn't believe a word the man said, but the fact remains, the manuscript was stolen.'

'I see,' said Jack. 'Well, I don't know anything about that. I just bought this from a friend. More of an acquaintance, really'

'I see,' said Hugo. 'Although, the strangest thing is that Sheridan's description of his visitor bears an uncanny resemblance to you. The description is quite exact, right down to the accent. Of course, he described it as "colonial", and not "American", as we might today.'

Jack began to laugh. 'Hugo,' he said, 'you really are something else. Honestly, man, I can't keep up with that surreal English sense of humour of yours. Time Agents? 1765? Thomas Sheridan?'

'Oh, please, Jack, cut the pantomime. I think we both know what I'm talking about. Or rather, you know a little more than I do, but I'm on the right track, aren't I? Did you think that you were the spider and I was the fly?'

Jack scowled at him, and Hugo roared with laughter.

'Oh, Jack, that really is quite endearing of you. You thought that you had come here to ensnare me? Oh, you may very well have been the one who contacted me, but didn't you think it was all just a little too easy?'

'Who are you?' Jack asked, his tone harder now, any last traces of pretence having washed away.

'I am who I say I am,' said Hugo. 'I'm Hugo Faulkner, son of Baron Faulkner of Darrington and celebrated bon vivant. I have the papers to prove it.' He slowly removed the white cotton gloves. 'The question is, Jack, who are you?'

'Who do you work for?' asked Jack. He was breathing heavily, barely able to contain his anger. How had this situation turned so quickly? He had come here to ask the questions, not to be interrogated himself.

'I am part of an organisation that asks questions,' said Hugo. 'And sometimes we provide answers. There is a cancer, Jack, at the heart of this country. Secrets and lies which threaten to destabilise everything. The days of Empire are behind us, and Britain is far from great. My organisation plans to capitalise on that. You might be interested in joining us, Jack.'

'I'm not.'

Hugo frowned, mockingly, with a childish pout.

'Oh, really, Jack? So dismissive? With nary a second thought? That's a shame. I'd hoped you'd see things differently'

'Well I really have to be going,' said Jack, flashing Hugo an empty smile. 'Maybe I'll see you around.'

'Oh, I do hope so,' said Hugo. 'That would be wonderful'

Jack stood but, as he turned to leave, Hugo reached out and grabbed him by the sleeve of his coat.

'Jack… You forgot your gloves.'

As he left the restaurant, his heart racing, Jack saw it again: the Rover P6, parked in the shadow of a tree in one corner of Golden Square. The driver was reading the Daily Telegraph, but the newspaper was lowered just an inch or two, and Jack saw the driver staring straight at him. Across the street from the parked car, two more men appeared to be having a conversation, but one of the men looked at him and held his gaze just a second longer than he should.

Jack left the square and walked down Brewer Street. Looking back just once, he saw the man in the Rover signal to the two men who had been talking, and very suddenly he was being followed.

Jack's pace quickened and he crossed the street to escape their field of view. As he reached the junction with Lexington Street, he ran into a small army of Hare Krishnas, perhaps fifty of them in all, dancing and singing and beating tambourines. He weaved his way through the sea of saffron-coloured robes and the din of the music, and joked to himself that this was one occasion when karma had come to the rescue.

Once he had freed himself from the musical throng, Jack began to run. Running wasn't really his style, or at least not running away, but he did so out of necessity. Something had gone very wrong with his plan. He'd intended to ask questions, and he supposed he'd gotten answers, but he'd never expected them to be waiting for him like that. He had to get back to Cardiff, and quickly.

First things first, though. The Hare Krishnas had provided a much-needed distraction but the two men were still chasing him. He ran as far as Dean Street, the men closing in on him, until he came to the narrow alleyway where he'd left his British racing green Triumph GT6.

Leaping into the car, he turned the key in the ignition, and the modified V8 engine roared into life. Jack was about to hit the accelerator when two pursuers appeared at the far end of the alleyway.

Slowly, they made their way towards him, their smug grins telling him they thought they had him cornered. Jack revved the engine once, twice, and spotted a moment's hesitation in their eyes in the split second before he put his foot down and drove straight for them.

One man leapt out of the way, crashing into the piles of old wooden crates and cardboard boxes that lined the alleyway, but the second was not so lucky. He was glanced by the front left wing, and sent spinning in the air like a rag doll, crashing face first onto the tarmac.

Jack hurtled along Dean Street before swerving sharply out into Oxford Street, barely missing the front of a red double-decker bus and the back end of a taxi. Horns blared and people gasped, and the engine of the Triumph growled furiously over the din.

Jack was clear. Almost. He was on the junction with Regent Street when the Rover from Golden Square veered out into the centre of the thoroughfare, its wheels hissing and screaming against tarmac, and began to give chase.

With its polished chrome bumper kissing the taillights of the Triumph, the Rover followed Jack as he weaved in and out of the traffic, tearing through red light after red light, swerving left and right. They drew nearer to the junction at Marble Arch, and all Jack could see ahead were streams of traffic in both directions.

He looked up at the rear-view mirror, and saw the steely glare of the Rover's driver; he betrayed no intention of slowing down. This was it; another dance with death.

In one sudden move, Jack pulled back the handbrake, sending the Triumph into a sharp spin. He was now facing the oncoming traffic, but clear of the path of the Rover, which skidded out into an onslaught of vehicles on Park Lane. It was smashed in one direction and then another by two buses, resting finally, a battered wreck, in the centre of the road. Broken and bloody, the driver's body lay hunched over the steering wheel, pressing down on the horn, which let out an unending wail.

Jack reversed, and then turned, driving past the steaming hulk, now barely recognisable as a car, before hitting the accelerator once more. He barely slowed down for the whole of his journey out of the city. He would glance, occasionally, at the rear-view mirror, but nobody was tailing him. Not now. They presumably had better sense.

He was on the great grey runway of the Severn Bridge while, on the radio, Jimi Hendrix sang about being 'Stone Free' when it happened.

First the music was drowned out by an agitated crackling. Then the interior of the car became a little warmer. There was a sound like the banging of an enormous drum, and suddenly Jack was not alone.

Sat beside him was a young man in shabby grey clothes; a boy maybe twenty or twenty-five years old, with black hair and blue eyes.

'Oh God…' said the boy, as if in abject terror. 'Oh my God… Jack?'

The car swerved, first left, then right, and then span 360 degrees before Jack hit the brakes and brought it screeching to a halt.

'What the…'

'Jack?'

'Who are you?'

'It's me,' said the boy. 'Don't you know me?

For a moment, Jack simply sat in silence. Glancing up at the mirror, he saw an articulated truck coming up behind them, so he started the engine again and carried on driving.

'What are you doing in my car?' he said, eventually. 'I mean… How did you… Who… How… No…

What are you doing in my car?'

'Don't you know me?' Michael asked. 'It's Michael. We met. You know me.'

'No,' he said. 'That's not possible. Who are you?'

'I'm Michael,' said the boy.

Jack had never seen anybody eat so quickly or with so much enthusiasm. They were in a Chinese cafe in the centre of Cardiff, away from the windows but close enough to a door should they need to make a quick getaway. It was the way Jack always did things.

The boy, Michael, had tried to tell him several things; about the place in the future where they had met, about the things that had happened there, but Jack had stopped him. The slightest wrong word and everything could be thrown out of balance. Besides, who really wanted to know their future, from beginning to end? The sort of thing most people wanted to know was winning horses. They would much prefer to leave the rest to fate, destiny and chance. He'd stuck to this rule, and he'd followed it more closely than he could have ever imagined back in the days when he'd played by a very relaxed set of rules. A year ago, he hadn't even placed any bets on England winning the World Cup, and he could have really cleaned up on that occasion.

'You enjoying that?'Jack said, pointing at the near-empty plate.

Michael nodded. 'I've never eaten Chinese food before,' he said. 'What are these?' He held up his fork.

'That's a bean sprout,' said Jack, laughing.

'Oh,' said Michael. 'They looked horrible at first but they're quite nice. I haven't eaten a thing in ages. Not since… Actually, I can't remember the last time I ate. Not properly, anyway. There were these things, like peas in the pod, in Japan, but other than that, nothing.'

'Mm…' said Jack. 'You should think about marketing that. The Time Traveller's Diet. Lose weight in no time.'

Michael frowned, not really understanding what Jack was talking about, and resumed eating.

'Look, Michael…' said Jack. 'I understand that things must be a little crazy for you, but.

He trailed off. Michael had dropped food onto his shirt and was frantically dabbing at it with a napkin, while occasionally glancing up at Jack in embarrassment.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I just… I don't normally eat like this.'

'It's OK,' said Jack. 'You were hungry.'

'What were you going to say?'

'When?'

'Just now. You said things must be crazy for me, and then you stopped talking.'

'Nothing,' said Jack. 'It's nothing.'

'You still didn't answer my question,' said Michael, before shovelling another forkful of food into his mouth.

'And which question was that?' asked Jack.

'How? How come you don't get any older?'

Jack sighed. 'It's not that I don't get any older,' he said. 'I do. Everyone gets older. I just do it a little slower than most people.'

'But how?'

'I don't know,' said Jack. 'I'm waiting for an answer, but I guess I've got a lot more waiting to do.'

'You sound sad,' said Michael. 'I thought nobody wanted to get old.'

'Like I told you,' said Jack, 'everyone gets old.'

As Michael scooped up the last remaining morsels from his plate their waitress came to the table, handing Jack a note. Jack opened it and read:

Jack,

No reason to be afraid, old chap. I may be able to help you out with your concerns. If you really are looking for answers I'd suggest you turn up at the fairground, Barry Island, 9pm sharp tomorrow.

Ciao.

'From the gentleman across the street, sir. He said he wanted you to read it…?'

The waitress pointed through a window on the other side of the cafe, and looking across the street Jack saw a man standing beneath the awning of a neighbouring restaurant.

It was Hugo.