A Catalogue of Catastrophe, page 29
part #13 of Chronicles of St. Mary's Series
I couldn’t help noticing how very masculine everything was. There were very few women around. Until nightfall, of course, when, given this was Westminster, all that would change.
The Palace of Westminster had been a proper royal residence although the last monarch to live here had been Fat Harry, I think. As a palace it was rather a disappointment. In fact, the whole area was. There certainly wasn’t much going on. On the other hand, of course, Parliament didn’t open until the 5th. Here, all was quiet emptiness. Blank windows stared down at us, daring us to enter.
‘No further, I think,’ said Markham. ‘Let’s not ask for trouble.’
We retraced our steps through the crowds. Darkness was closing in and lights were springing up everywhere. Shopkeepers were taking in their produce, shouting to each other, enquiring as to the day’s business and putting up their shutters.
The air was damp. Tiny droplets of water clung to my sleeve. I was suddenly very tired. We should go back to the pod, watch Dr Dowson in action, return him whence he came and, at a suitable time, deliver Lord Monteagle his History-changing letter.
In between all that, perhaps I could grab a few hours’ sleep, try and eat something and have a think about what Dr Stone had told me.
‘I’ve made some tea,’ announced Dr Dowson as we entered the pod. ‘Max, you look chilled to the bone. Careful not to smudge it, now.’
The letter lay on the console, kept flat by a half-drunk mug of tea at one end and his spectacles case at the other. I could see wet ink glistening.
‘You’ve done it already?’ I said in astonishment.
‘Oh yes,’ he said airily. ‘It wasn’t difficult.’
I peered at the letter, comparing it with the original on the screen. ‘Oh my God, great job, sir. It’s magnificent. It’s practically identical to the original.’
‘It is identical to the original,’ he said, proudly. ‘That . . .’ he pointed to the letter on the screen, ‘is that.’ He pointed to the letter on the console. ‘This is the original letter. I wrote it. Don’t you see? There’s only ever been my letter.’
‘So . . . it wasn’t written by one of the conspirators?’
‘No, it was me,’ he said complacently.
‘Not Francis Tresham?’
‘No – me.’
‘Not even Monteagle himself because some said he did it for the reward?’
‘No – I wrote the letter.’
‘And to save his life, of course.’
‘No,’ he said, patiently, explaining things to the hard of understanding. ‘It was me. I wrote the letter. That’s why my letter is identical to that letter. They’re one and the same. I wrote the Monteagle letter.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Take a look.’
I did. And there it was. The familiar image made real right in front of me. Even to the error on the first line. Today, the original letter is in the National Archive. Correction – this letter is in the National Archive. Go and look for yourself.
‘Well,’ said Markham. ‘I suppose that solves the question of its origin.’
I read slowly.
‘My lord, out of the love I beare to some of youere frends, I have a care of youre preservacion, therefore I would aduyse you as you tender your life to devise some excuse to shift youer attendance at this parliament, for God and man hath concurred to punishe the wickedness of this tyme, and thinke not slightly of this advertisement, but retire yourself into your country, where you may expect the event in safety, for though there be no apparance of anni stir, yet I saye they shall receive a terrible blow this parliament and yet they shall not seie who hurts them this cowncel is not to be contemned because it may do yowe good and can do yowe no harme for the dangere is passed as soon as yowe have burnt the letter and i hope God will give yowe the grace to mak good use of it to whose holy proteccion i comend yowe.’
Under the last line the letter was addressed ‘To the right honorable the Lord Monteagle’
The stiff paper crackled under my hands. ‘Let it dry thoroughly,’ said the master forger masquerading as a respectable member of society, ‘and then roll it up and seal it. My work here is done.’
‘In that case,’ said Markham, ‘can we offer you dinner, sir?’ He gestured to our stack of ration trays.
‘No,’ said Dr Dowson quickly. ‘I’d better be getting back. God knows what the old fool has been up to in my absence.’
‘St Mary’s might have been eaten by now,’ I said, suddenly remembering their current insect-related crisis.
‘What?’ said Markham, in astonished delight. ‘Never tell me they’ve taken to cannibalism. Although now you come to mention it – not unlikely.’
‘Ten thousand flesh-eating beetles,’ I said.
His face fell. ‘Oh. How disappointing.’
‘Disappointing?’
‘Well, you know. Flesh-eating beetles . . . yeah, OK, I suppose if you like that sort of thing, but actual cannibalism, Max . . .’
Dr Dowson intervened firmly. ‘Absolutely no cannibalism. For heaven’s sake, what sort of people do you think we are?’
There was a very long silence as the pair of us mentally assembled and discarded possible answers.
‘I’ve got nothing,’ said Markham to me.
I shook my head. ‘Nor me.’
‘And certainly not ten thousand of them,’ continued the doctor. ‘Only about five hundred. All of whom are guaranteed not to eat anything untoward. Not even Bashford’s testicles. And definitely no cannibalism.’
‘None at all?’ Markham turned to me. ‘The place has really gone downhill since we left.’
I nodded. ‘It has, hasn’t it.’
I can’t say I was looking forward to the return trip. My stomach had settled, my eyes were working properly – in that I was only seeing one world and not two or three simultaneously – and I was really quite reluctant to set it all off again. Especially after what Dr Stone had told me. I didn’t really think that each jump might be my last but even so . . .
Markham picked up the writing materials and carefully stowed the letter away inside his doublet while I ran an eye over the console. Everything seemed fine – no flashing red lights anywhere.
Markham grinned. ‘See you soon, Max. Dr Dowson – many thanks, sir.’
He disappeared out of the door.
I gave him a moment to get clear and then said, ‘Ready, Doctor? Computer, initiate jump.’
‘Jump initiated.’
I can confirm that this time the world did go white. My eyes were open.
I had the door open as soon as we landed.
‘Good luck in your endeavours,’ said Dr Dowson, hopping out of the door. ‘Whatever they are. And you can use that letter with confidence, Max.’
I nodded. ‘Thank you, sir. Take care.’
I waited until he’d left the paint store and then set the coordinates for 1605 again. I shouldn’t be doing this. This was exactly the sort of non-essential jump Dr Stone had warned me against. I could have sent Markham, found a quiet spot and waited for his return. He knew how to operate a pod. It’s just . . . there’s something about that moment – the moment your pod disappears – and you’re all alone. Really all alone. And if anything goes wrong, you’ll never see home again. Given the choice between that and quietly imploding on the floor I’d gone for implosion. Although the return jump hadn’t been too bad. The injection was working.
Markham met me at the door.
‘Well,’ I said, peering out at Westminster’s dim outline. The fog was back. ‘Here we are. Late afternoon, 26th October 1605. Cold. Damp. Anyone with any brains is snug and warm inside. Only mad dogs and historians on the streets.’
Markham pulled out the letter, now rolled into a little tube of paper and sealed with a blob of red wax. ‘We should get rid of this before one of us drops it down the toilet or spills our tea on it.’
I nodded very unenthusiastically. It really wasn’t nice out there. And Monteagle shouldn’t get the letter until 4th November, but did it actually matter?
I tried to think it through. The king was away hunting. If we delivered the letter tonight, would Monteagle sit on it for a couple of days until the king returned? Would that matter? On the other hand, if we kept it here and something happened . . . Suppose Insight turned up tomorrow and killed us before we could deliver it. Or the pod blew up? Or we lost the wretched thing? We couldn’t afford to take the chance. We had to seize the initiative and deliver the letter tonight. Because once the letter was with Monteagle then events should take their course. Once we’d delivered it, even if Insight did kill us afterwards, it would be too late.
Markham looked at me. ‘Do you want to stay behind?’
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘There’s no chance of you finding Hoxton by yourself and I’ll have to fish you out of the Thames again.’
‘Yeah, but I was worth it though.’
I stamped off into the bathroom.
Now that we’d made the decision, we didn’t hang around. Markham had eaten in the pub and I wasn’t hungry.
‘It’s a good hour from Westminster to Hoxton,’ said Markham. ‘Longer in this fog.’
‘We should start as soon as possible in that case. We know the letter was delivered around seven in the evening so we’ll follow the original version of events as closely as possible. And afterwards we’ll still have to get all the way back here again.’
‘But then,’ he said as I pulled the pod door closed behind us, and we set off, ‘our duty is done, we can finally go home. I can’t tell you how knackered I am.’
‘Me too.’
‘I tell you, Max, when this is over I am going to get right royally rat-arsed.’
‘For a week,’ I said.
‘With luck, Smallhope and Pennyroyal will have given events in 1848 the kicking they deserve. All set for a big party-pooh, as Lady Amelia would say.’
The first thing Markham did was steal a lantern off someone’s wall. I opened my mouth to remonstrate, realised we weren’t going to get far without one and closed it again.
He asked if Dr Dowson had got back all right.
‘Yes – everything was disappointingly quiet. No flesh-eating beetles were galloping around the building seeking what they might devour. Not even Treadwell rampaging around the place doing the same.’
He shook his head. ‘Place has gone to the dogs since we left.’
‘It certainly has.’
We fell silent and concentrated on finding our way, following the river for a little while and then striking out north, making our way through the maze of narrow, deserted streets. Anyone sensible was either inside in the warm or, judging by the occasional roar of noise from an open door, enjoying a convivial evening with their mates in the pub.
Eventually, I plucked up the courage. ‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Sure.’
‘How much of all this did you tell Hunter?’
‘All of it. Well, everything I knew at the time. Not Insight, of course, but I discuss most things with her. She usually has something useful to contribute. Why?’
I said nothing.
‘Max? Why do you ask?’
I answered with another question.
‘Before you left St Mary’s – did Dr Bairstow talk to you about . . . things?’
‘A bit. Probably as little as he could. You?’
I shook my head and sought to change the subject. I don’t know why I bothered. He’s not an idiot.
‘What about you and Leon?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Did you talk about things?’
I shook my head. ‘Not really.’ Which I thought was a nicely ambiguous answer that in no way implied that no one – including Leon – had told me anything. ‘It all happened so quickly.’
‘Mm,’ he said.
‘I mean . . . I just . . . I wasn’t as involved as some people were.’
‘Mm,’ he said, and was silent for so long I wondered if he was thinking about something else.
Wrong. Out of the blue, he said, ‘Did you ever tell Leon about the tickets?’
For a moment I couldn’t think what he was talking about and then I remembered. A while ago Leon had been arrested on suspicion of murdering his first wife, Monique. Anyway, the three of us – Peterson, Markham and I – set off to prove his innocence. Which we did, but, while searching her flat for evidence, we came across tickets showing she was about to return to England. There was a pandemic raging at the time. Both his sons were in hospital. Monique was about to give blood which would possibly save them. Clive Ronan killed her before she could do so.
After his sons died, Leon had more or less fallen apart with rage and grief. He’d come to terms with it in the end but I’d never told him of Monique’s intentions. Never told him that, without Ronan, there was a chance – albeit a small one – that his boys might have survived. Knowing that, he would have abandoned everything and gone after Ronan in a frenzy of revenge that neither of them would have survived. So, rightly or wrongly, I’d never told him what I’d found.
‘It’s not the same thing,’ I said.
‘No.’
We walked in silence for a while. Leaving the city was no problem. The gateman let us through without question.
In these times, Hoxton was still a village, surrounded by fields and open land. There was, however, a well-defined track which we had no difficulty following. First, however, was Smithfield.
‘Fun Fact,’ said Markham, lightening the mood.
I followed his lead and sighed. ‘It never rains but it pours, does it?’
‘This area was originally known as Smoothfield, from the Saxon word “smeth” which means . . .’
‘Smooth,’ I finished for him.
‘Well done,’ he said, happily teaching his grandmother to suck eggs. ‘They used to joust here, you know.’
Resistance is futile. There is, literally, no way to shut him up. Attempting to interrupt or divert him not only prolongs the agony but encourages him to dive down all sorts of conversational back alleys. I usually just let the words wash over me and think about what to have for lunch.
‘And then, of course, in the Middle Ages, it became the big livestock market. And Wat Tyler was executed here. And William Wallace. And there was the infamous Bartholomew Fair. Debauchery and vice,’ he said with enthusiasm. ‘We should check it out one day.’
We were walking down the middle of what would one day be a street. The ground was slippery. Dark houses showed on either side. We were avoiding doorways and alleyways and whatever they might contain. Silence was all around us.
I stopped dead. ‘When did this stop being fun?’
Markham actually carried on walking a few paces before realising I wasn’t with him. Holding up the lantern, he said, ‘What?’
‘When did this stop being fun? When did our world become so dark?’
He didn’t speak for a long time. We plodded on. Finally, he drew breath, saying sadly, ‘I don’t know, Max. I suppose, when we were at St Mary’s, we pretty much lived in a bubble. The world didn’t impinge a great deal, did it? We weren’t in it half the time. We had food and shelter and a moderate amount of pay and just got on with things. Now, we’re out in the real grown-ups’ world. Doing grown-up things. For grown-up money, but that means taking grown-up risks.’
‘Yes, I know, but it’s not that. A year ago, I’d have bounced all over this. I’d have been full of plans for overcoming Insight and returning victorious with an armful of plunder. Look at that Flying Auction we attended. Neither of us even hesitated. I arrested a roomful of people right under the noses of the Time Police and you stole enough stuff to fund St Mary’s for years. We didn’t think twice, did we? And now . . . ?’
‘Keep walking,’ he said, consulting his compass and taking my arm. ‘We can’t afford to lose any time.’
I started walking again.
‘The reason for you,’ he said, ‘is that you’ve lost control of your life. It’s not the risk that’s upsetting you – it’s because things are being done to you instead of you doing them to other people. Max, if you weren’t included in Dr Bairstow’s briefing, that was for a reason and . . .’
‘I’m never included in anything,’ I said, angrily. ‘He never told me about you – even after he knew.’
‘That was for your own safety,’ he said quietly. ‘You acknowledged that yourself.’
‘Not the point,’ I said, not sure what the point was. ‘I had my mind messed with – yes, for my own good. It’s amazing what you can do to people if you tell them it’s for their own good.’
‘This is about Leon, isn’t it?’
‘What? No. Of course not.’
‘Max, he didn’t know Treadwell was Time Police. None of us did. Dr Bairstow set that up by himself. His plan was to spread the risk. Scatter his key people and leave them free to act as they saw fit. And he employed Smallhope and Pennyroyal to oversee everything. He was almost certain he’d be removed from St Mary’s at one point and he was. The only thing he got wrong was how that would happen. He thought he’d just be sacked – not kidnapped and locked away out of sight with everyone being told he was dead. He intended to make contact eventually and plan our next step. And I’m pretty sure he had no idea how powerful these people were. Are. Or how far their influence reaches. Past, present, future – they’re everywhere. Insight might have been tampering with History for hundreds of years. Of course I think they’re Hoyle’s shadowy figures, and possibly even behind Clive Ronan – though he might have been a double-edged weapon. And the more we do, the more we uncover. I suspect we’re getting to the point where we need to involve the Time Police. Let them take over. In fact, our esteemed employers might be doing that at this very moment.’
‘But . . .’
‘And our problems will resolve themselves. If we prevail, then Dr Bairstow is reinstated and you and I will no longer be criminals. We can return to St Mary’s. If that’s what you want,’ he said, raising the lantern to look at me. ‘The thing is, Max, you’ll be back in control of your life. Whatever decision you make will be yours. Matthew’s growing up. And he’ll be off to the Time Police soon for his sixth-form work – your responsibilities to him are changing. And obviously I don’t want to hurt your feelings in any way, but at the moment you’re crazier than a sack full of very crazy things. We finish here and then we go home. A good night’s sleep or two, some decent food that doesn’t come out of a tray, and you’ll be in a much better condition to make decisions about the future. I’m right, aren’t I?’
