Frozen in Time (18 page)

‘What is a
hippy
?’ asked Polly, and Ben and Rachel both groaned. Of course, nobody was called a hippy until the 1960s.

‘Oh, this is going to take
for ever
!’ wailed Rachel. ‘Can’t we just make them both mutes or something? Then they wouldn’t have to talk to anyone about anything.’

‘Well, thanks a lot! I’d like to see how
you’d
like it, being shoved into another century,’ huffed Freddy.

‘Let’s have a break now,’ said Ben. ‘I’m done in. Can we get some Pot Noodle on or something, Rachel? Oh, I
wish
the telly wasn’t broken …’

They ate Pot Noodle, listening to Radio 2 again. Polly and Freddy seemed at first disgusted with the food and then madly into it. Rachel felt guilty all over again. First Burger King, now Pot Noodle. It really didn’t say much for 2009 cuisine. She got apples from the fridge for afters, hoping to make up for it a bit. ‘Um …’ she began, unsure how to say it in front of Ben, ‘if you like, we can order in some ingredients and stuff and … um … maybe … you can teach me how to make a crock pot?’

‘Hot pot,’ laughed Polly. ‘Yes—I’d be happy to.’

‘But you’d have to teach Ben too.’

‘Would I? Really?’

‘Yesss,’ hissed Rachel, glaring at Ben who was shaking his head wildly. ‘If I’m going to learn to cook I should jolly well think you can too. Oh, what? Listen to me! I sound just like Polly! Help!’

‘Get over it,’ said Polly and they all exploded into laughter, spraying Pot Noodle across the table.

Chambers looked up from his papers, irritably clicking his ballpoint pen in and out, as a junior civil servant burst into his office without knocking.

‘Yes, Travis?’

The clerk looked slightly pink—he’d obviously run up from two floors below. The Whitehall lifts were being serviced this week. ‘Sir … I … um … remember you said to check on any movement in the old Emerson files?’

Chambers narrowed his eyes. ‘Yes—yes, I remember. Something happening?’

‘The Emerson records have been accessed, sir. Three times this week.’

Chambers put down his pen and sat up. ‘Three times?’

‘Yes, sir—somebody’s poking around. Not old Granville’s department this time. Someone else. What if they find something out, sir?’

Chambers smiled. ‘If they find something out I shall be delighted. As long as we’re the first to know. Better call Chapman. She’s been bored out of her mind in that little backwater for the last nine months. We were just about to grant her a transfer. Maybe our esteemed scientist lives! Maybe he’s bored with Russia too, and following his old friend Tarrant back home at last.’

Chambers would be glad to see the old man come home, even if he turned out to have been a traitor all along, and Dick Tarrant’s confession had been a set up. He hated unsolved cases and nobody ever had found the children. And the children were the only reason he was inter-ested. There was very wild talk of what
could
have happened to them. Few believed it, but Chambers was a man who could believe a lot.

‘Sir, one more thing you should know. One of the access points for the Emerson files … well, it was inside this building. About half an hour ago.’

‘What?’ Chambers shot up out of his chair. ‘Have you found out who it is?’

‘Not yet, sir—but we know where they are. They’re still on line. Three floors down.’

Chambers shook his head in amazement and grabbed his jacket. ‘Shall we go?’

‘What
is
this stuff? Where are the laces?’ Freddy was holding up a black school shoe and yanking the Velcro strap off it in fascination. ‘Oh, bother! I’ve ripped it!’ Freddy looked guiltily around The Foot Factory, which was busy with last-minute school shoe buyers on the last Saturday before the new term. The shop didn’t have much in the way of lace ups. Ben showed Freddy how Velcro worked and he raised his eyebrows and seemed quite impressed. The school clothes had been easier—grey trousers and white polo shirts for the boys, with grey V-neck jumpers. Grey skirts or trousers for the girls with white blouses and grey jumpers; all available in the small clothing store next to Woolworths. Ben and Rachel needed new stuff as well, so they were all now lugging carrier bags full of school clothes.

There had been next to no goshing from Freddy and Polly that morning—only a mild surprise that Polly could wear trousers, and that none of them had to wear ties.

‘Jolly good thing too,’ remarked Freddy. ‘I hate ties.’

Ben paid for the shoes—his own as well as Freddy’s—with the last of the money. He hoped Uncle Jerome had thought to place another food shopping order before he went off to London. There wasn’t much left at home now and they’d heard nothing at all from him since he’d gone away the day before. He didn’t carry a mobile phone and they had no idea where in London he’d gone.

Freddy and Polly continued to get better at not staring and gasping as they walked along the high street. Their eyes widened at times and they would blink and look at each other occasionally—like when three boys about their own age went by on roller blades. Freddy stared over his shoulder at them and gave a low whistle. ‘Now
those
I would like to try!’

‘Well, don’t ask to borrow off
them
,’ muttered Ben. The three boys had been Roly O’Neal and the Pincer twins. Roly O’Neal looked as if he’d grown a foot during the summer holidays—in height
and
width.

The weekend passed quickly with school preparations and more study of the twenty-first century, and on Sunday night Rachel got out the ironing board and got started on pressing their new uniforms. She did her own and Polly’s things, while Polly busied herself with an evening meal. They had stopped at the butcher’s the day before (for the first time, possibly, in Rachel’s life) and got pork chops and beef mince and some stock cubes and then onions, tomatoes, carrots, and potatoes from the greengrocer’s, along with strawberries and plums. Last night they’d had pork chops in gravy with carrots and mash and Polly was now making minced beef hot pot. It smelt wonderful. After a few minutes of ironing and feeling strangely relaxed and happy as her odd new friend made dinner, Rachel suddenly slammed the iron down on the board.

‘OK—this has to stop now! It’s gone far enough!’

‘What?’ Polly wiped her hands on a mystery blue and white striped apron that she had found somewhere.

‘I was just about to start ironing
Ben’s
shirt.
Ben! Ben!
Get in here and iron your polo shirt! Quickly! I’ve got a scary case of the Pollies going on here.’

Ben arrived at the kitchen door, hooting with laughter, but he took over at the ironing board, much to Freddy’s amusement. ‘Don’t laugh—you’re next,’ warned Rachel.

Freddy
did
have a go at ironing, but was so useless at it that Ben took over and did it properly. Rachel felt proud of her big brother. She knew a lot of boys his age would never even think about ironing, even in 2009. But they had both had to learn because their mum and dad were away so much, and Uncle Jerome wouldn’t notice a creased jumper unless it bit him. Freddy had got a few more supplies out of the vault. Most of the clothes were only good for wearing at home—they’d get him laughed at, at school. But he had a good backpack-type bag which he could use. Ben and Rachel shared out their many notebooks and pens and pencils. The rest, they guessed, the school would give to Freddy and Polly.

The hot pot was wonderful. It beat frozen convenience food any day of the week, thought Ben. ‘I could get to like this!’ he mumbled, through a mouthful of gravy, mince, and potato. Polly looked delighted.

‘Good,’ said Rachel, ‘because Polly’s going to teach us all how to make it.’ Freddy spluttered and laughed and Rachel gave him a very old-fashioned look for a modern girl and he coughed and looked down at his plate.

‘You must have missed the bit about Women’s Lib,’ said Rachel. ‘We’ll have to go over that again soon! But for now just remember this—
girls
are not here to serve
boys
!’

After dinner they shared the washing up duties, although Freddy looked aghast when Rachel handed him a drying up cloth. Not long after, with Bessie fed and watered and put into her basket in the hallway, they went to bed. It was early, but they were tired out. Teaching modern history to Polly and Freddy was a full time occupation now for Ben and Rachel. And learning it was clearly pretty exhausting too. Their great-aunt and uncle looked done in.

Rachel and Polly fell asleep fast, even though they were excited and nervous about school the next day. But at around midnight Rachel woke up and noticed a light under the door. She got up, crept carefully past Polly’s sleeping form, opened the door and peered across the landing. Freddy was in the bathroom, the door ajar. He was staring into the mirror above the sink, holding a tissue to his nose. Seeing Rachel, he screwed it up and threw it into the toilet, immediately flushing it away. He walked past her, back to bed, with a tight smile.

‘You swore,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget.’

‘The question is, should I care about a promise made fifty-two years ago by Nikita Khrushchev?’ said the Russian president. From the wall of his vast marble office, Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union in 1957, stared down at them all, along with Bulganin, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev. Ivan and Gregor said nothing. They were still in shock from what they had found in the bunker.

‘Do we have all his work? All his notes?’

Gregor nodded.

‘So then, perhaps we can work on without the man himself. But this …’ The president flipped his computer monitor around and looked at the grainy faces on its screen. Four children, clustered round a desk, somewhere in England. ‘This makes it all so much harder to decide. I think we need to negotiate a new deal. I want to meet these children first.’

Gregor nodded to Ivan. ‘Tell Tara to go ahead,’ he said. ‘With care … but quickly. We don’t want to alert the British for as long as possible … in case they don’t know already.’

‘Do you think the British government has any idea?’ asked the president.

‘Tara says she can’t be sure,’ said Gregor. ‘There has been … activity … in the town. A retired policeman has been looking up his old notes on the case. Jerome Emerson—who is the uncle of the fair-haired children— was seen in London, but our man lost him on the Tube. He may be back home by now. It’s worrying. The British have been jumpy and curious ever since Tarrant crawled back to them last year. If we’d got that letter on time we would have known to stop him. We’re sending three operatives to assist Tara. She’ll make her move before the British work anything out.’