No Time Like the Past (21 page)

A familiar voice cut through the hubbub.

‘Get behind me.’

He pushed me roughly behind him but despite all my best efforts, my legs just wouldn’t hold me up any longer. I began to slither down the wall and as I did so, my elbow caught on a kind of latch. There was a click and something behind me gave way. I fell backwards and grabbed instinctively at the figure in front of me, which did no good at all, because I fell heavily onto a cold, stone floor and jarring my knee quite badly, and whoever it was landed on top of me, because, of course, I just wasn’t damaged enough, was I?

I think everyone on the street was just as surprised as me. One moment we were there and the next minute – we weren’t.

Their astonishment gave him just enough time to stagger painfully to his feet, slam the door closed, and fumble the bar into place. We were safe. Relatively speaking.

Blearily, I tried to lift my head and focus. Someone knelt beside me. It
was
Leon and he too, looked bloody and bruised. St Mary’s was taking a real battering today. We seemed to be in some sort of small storeroom. The warm smell of spices enveloped me. It would have been rather pleasant just to drift away, but I could hear the mob outside, pounding at the door. This was just a temporary respite.

I tried to say hello but it didn’t come out that way at all.

I tried to focus on something – anything – but I really couldn’t see that clearly. Well enough, however, to see that other than the door, there was no way out.

The blinding light above my head resolved itself into a skylight. He pulled over a barrel and climbed up, but it was way above his head. He might be able to pull himself up, but there was no chance for me and it was only a matter of time before those outside discovered they could get in that way. We’d bought ourselves a few minutes, nothing more.

He jumped down and came to kneel beside me.

Catching his sleeve, I said thickly, ‘You. Go.’

‘No.’

‘Leon …’

‘Not leaving you, Max. Save your breath.’

Sometimes, there’s no arguing with him. He gets that note in his voice, that look on his face …

Outside, they were battering away at the door.

He activated his com and said calmly, ‘Gentlemen, your urgent assistance is required, please. Can you stand up? No, not you, Peterson. Quick as you can, please. No, not you, Max. You stay there. No, not you, Miss Prentiss. Look – will everyone who isn’t the Chief Technical Officer please shut up. Thank you. Peterson, you, Clerk, and Roberts get back here, asap. Yes, same location. Prentiss, you and Mr Sands remain at the pods, please. Prep for the usual hasty getaway. Everyone move now. No, not you, Max. You just stay where you are.’

I was busy wiping the blood off my face, and when I could see a little better, pulled up my skirts to expose the black and purple melon that had once been my knee.

Bollocks! I wasn’t going to be skipping anywhere this afternoon. I hastily pulled down my skirt before he saw it.

He was inspecting the door. Without turning, he said, ‘It’s your knee, isn’t it? How badly does it hurt?’

‘Hardly at all,’ I said, with a complete absence of accuracy. ‘An icepack or two and it will be absolutely fine.’

To this day, I’m still not sure what set him off, but he went up like a rocket. We stood – well, sprawled, in my case – in that dirty, musty storeroom with half of Florence trying to batter its way through the door, and with every chance that rescue would arrive too late, and had a conversation that would change our lives.

Attack is always the best form of defence, so I made sure I opened the batting. ‘What are you doing here? You were supposed to remain with the pods.’

‘I’m not even going to answer that.’

‘But the paintings …’

‘Forget about the bloody paintings, will you. Let’s talk about why you can’t even get from A to B without starting a riot on the way.’

I was righteously incensed. ‘This is a search and rescue mission. We were here for those paintings. You should be at the pods now, assisting. Why aren’t you at the pods now, assisting?’

‘Those paintings are not the most important things in Florence.’

I tried to keep it light. ‘Yes they are. Historians are two a penny, but there’s only one Botticelli.’

‘You are not two a penny. There is only one of you, too. You are not worth less than a splash of paint on a bit of wood.’

Typical techie. They have all the artistic appreciation of people who spend every day hitting metal with a lump hammer.

‘You can’t say that. Those painting will touch millions of people’s lives in a way I never could.’

‘You touch people’s lives, Max. Not in the millions, but that doesn’t make you less valid than a wooden panel. People are always more important than things.’

Unable to stand still, he was prowling around the tiny storeroom, looking for non-existent ways out. ‘You mean a lot to me. Why doesn’t that mean a lot to you?’

I opened my mouth, but he swept on.

‘You still don’t get it, do you? Even after all this time. After all that’s happened to us. From the moment I met you, when you stood in front of me with that hair and those eyes and that attitude … You’ve been wreaking havoc in my life ever since. You dance around the timeline, escaping disaster by a hair’s breadth and sometimes not even by that much. You leave a trail of catastrophe and devastation strung out behind you like a comet tail.’

I was so flabbergasted by this injustice that I could hardly speak. Definitely a first there.

I regrouped. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re standing in front of me now, spouting some gibberish about me risking life and limb and you’re far worse than I could ever be. Who got himself lost in the Cretaceous? I had to steal a pod to get you out. Who got himself snatched by Clive Ronan and carted off into the future? If it wasn’t for me you’d still be naked and tied to a bed.’ I stopped to consider that for a moment and then got back on track. ‘Who fell in a ditch and was nearly eaten by Nile crocodiles last year? It took three of us to get you out. Who would have had a burning cathedral fall on his stupid head if Markham and I hadn’t got the door open?’ I raised my voice to be heard over the repeated hammering on the door. ‘And now – instead of one of us being stuck in a Florentine cellar, there’s two of us stuck in a Florentine cellar. Is there a way out? No, there is not. Are we trapped? Yes, it would appear so. The whole point of this assignment was to recover …’

I got no further. He seized my shoulders, twisted me round to face him, and kissed me hard. Really hard. It was one of his better efforts – as I might have mentioned when I got my breath back.

He ignored me. ‘You just won’t be happy until you’ve driven me completely insane, will you? I’m a reasonable man. I don’t ask for much. Just someone who can get through the working day without imperilling herself, or those around her, or the timeline … Why couldn’t you just follow Clerk and Sands back to the pod? And don’t give me any of your usual crap about being overtaken by events. You just couldn’t walk past, could you? You just couldn’t leave well alone?’

I opened my mouth to protest at the injustice of this, but the shouting in the street kicked up a notch and from the way lumps of plaster were falling away from the doorjamb, the whole lot was going to come away any minute now.

Somehow, he had wrapped himself around me and was taking my weight. I leaned back against his solid warmth. I could feel his heart and it was racing away. As was mine. I turned my head to see him better. I would have liked a little longer to savour the moment, but that door was coming down any moment now.

He took my hand and rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. I rested my head back on his shoulder and looked up at the grey light seeping through the grille. Escape – so near and yet so far. I made no further attempt to persuade him to leave. He wouldn’t go. I wouldn’t have gone either, so I was in no position to criticise.

One of the hinges was working loose. I could hear shouting and the sounds of bodies thudding against the door. We had only a few minutes left before…

‘Do you think …? The thing is … Would you like to marry me?’

The door trembled, but not anywhere near as much as me. There was a long, long silence.

Because, with those few words, wherever they came from, my life changed forever. Everything stopped dead. Even the hammering on the door seemed to recede. The world just stopped. I stood on the edge. The future was unfamiliar and far more frightening than anything on the other side of that door was. Unexplored territory. Terror Firma.

With a crash, the door latch broke clear of the wall. The doorframe shuddered. Daylight appeared. The whole thing was coming down. We had only seconds left.

‘Yes. Yes, I would. Very much.’

‘I … don’t know why I said that.’

‘I don’t care. You asked. I said yes and I’m holding you to it.’

The entire door, frame, hinges, bar, everything, crashed into the storeroom in a shower of dust and debris.

I balanced unsteadily on one leg and pulled out my stun gun.

‘This isn’t going to be much fun,’ he said.

‘Don’t worry; I won’t hurt them too much.’

He moved away a little, to give us both room.

‘It’s been an honour and a privilege, Max.’

‘For me, too.’

Three bulky figures fought their way through the dust, crunching over the broken bricks and plaster. They had scarves tied tightly around their faces and carried heavy wooden staffs. They looked big and mean and they meant business.

The one in front pulled down his scarf and prepared to enjoy the one of the greatest moments of his life.

‘Toc-toc!’

Chapter Fifteen

I opened my eyes. It didn’t make the slightest difference. I couldn’t see a thing. I would have panicked but whatever it is that Dr Foster pumps into people on these occasions was doing its job beautifully. There was one thing, however, that was vitally important.

‘The paintings? Did we get them?’

Someone said something I couldn’t make out. Great. Now I couldn’t hear, either.

I tried again, getting cross because no one was answering me.

Something cold slid into my hand.

I must remember to tell Helen to stop doing that.

Finally, I opened my eyes. Some people see angels. I got Peterson. Scarfing down my grapes. I stared at him reproachfully through my one working eye and rearranged my priorities.

‘Leon?’

‘At Site Two.

‘Is anyone else hurt?’

‘Not compared with you, no. Just minor bits and pieces.’

I nodded.

‘For you, however, a bit more serious. Bruised kidney. You have excitingly coloured wee. Extensive bruising and lacerations. A magnificent black eye. Minor concussion. Helen’s had a go at your knee. Shall I go on?’

‘No. Bored.’

Silence. I peered Cyclopically at him.

He grinned. ‘Do you want me to put you out of your misery?’

‘Go on, then.’

He couldn’t keep it in. ‘We got them, Max. All three of them.’

I was grinning so much it hurt.

‘You were right. They followed the cart and we led them a merry dance, I can tell you. They caught us up in the end and had a good poke around, only to find a bunch of not very exciting pots and pans and three blank panels. They confiscated the lot, of course, so we lost the cart. Not quite sure what that will do to the timeline. Let’s hope it ended up on the Bonfire at the end of the day.’

He helped himself to the last of my grapes and began poking around the apples.

‘Good plan of yours. Clerk and Sands got back to the pod with the real panels, no trouble at all. We got your call. Leon set off at the speed of light. Showing the correct grasp of priorities – and knowing we’d have to answer to you afterwards – we secured the paintings first and followed on behind, only to find you about to be beaten up by a group of small children. I have to say, if you had any street cred before, you certainly don’t now.’ He looked sideways at me. ‘Congratulations, by the way.’

I played dumb. ‘What for?’

He looked at me, still going at the apple like a starving rabbit. ‘Leon left his com open. We heard every word. You would not believe the huge amounts of money changing hands around this place. I’m taking Helen out to dinner with mine.’

Oh my God. Oh my God. What had I done? I was engaged to be married. ‘Does everyone know?’

‘Of course. Except for Dr Bairstow.’

‘Bet you he does,’ I said, displaying possibly slightly more gloom than was appropriate for a recently engaged person.

‘Of course he does, but nobody wants to be the person to tell him officially. We’ll leave that to the engaged couple. Good luck there. Any idea what he’ll say?’

‘You have thirty minutes to pack your belongings and be gone’ was the most likely option. ‘No. Can we talk about something else?’

‘Well – back to the paintings. You should have been there. We had a hell of a job getting them through the pod door. It was just like one those spatial awareness tests we give recruits – and as it turned out, we all we all failed that one, but we got them in eventually. Prentiss and Sands stayed put and we all cantered off to your rescue, thoroughly enjoying the in-flight entertainment on the way. Was Leon really once tied naked to a bed? No, don’t answer that. Let me live with the image. Tell him that one has passed into St Mary’s legend. That’ll cheer him up. Anyway, the paintings and everyone else have gone on to Site Two and I brought you back here as quickly as I could.’

He read my mind.

‘The entire Security Section is guarding the caves, Max. A mouse couldn’t get past them let alone Clive Ronan. Barring natural accidents and disasters, the panels will be fine. Dr Bairstow’s talking to Thirsk at this moment. He sends you his regards and has asked me to remind you that you’ve exceeded your sick-leave limit for this year already and it’s only September.’

‘I didn’t know there was a limit.’

‘I think he’s imposed one especially for you.’

He bit into his apple again and said indistinctly, ‘The thing is, Max … the thing is … you’re in trouble.’

‘What?’

Outraged, I tried to sit up, dislodged something important inside, and fell back on my pillows, coughing and feeling every inch of me protest.

He glanced nervously over his shoulder. ‘Shh, for God’s sake, or we’ll have Hunter in here. Or worse – Helen.’

I said in a painful whisper, ‘How can I be in trouble? We’ve just saved what are about to be the three most famous paintings in History. What more does he want from me? Why is it …?

He was so agitated that he actually put down the apple.

‘No, listen, will you. I don’t mean that sort of trouble. Max, he’s talking about sending you to Thirsk for three months, minimum. Probably six. Maybe even a year.’

I was bewildered. ‘But why?’

‘Well, for God’s sake, look at you. You’ve had a rough year. He’s offering you a period of light duties. To recover.’

‘I can’t leave St Mary’s for a year. Who would run my department? I have no senior historians. It would be a disaster.’ I tried to sit up. ‘I must talk to him.’

He picked up his apple again. ‘No, you don’t. I have a better idea.’

‘You?’

‘Yes,’ he said defensively. ‘And why not? Listen to me. I think we can help each other out here. I don’t want you to go to Thirsk, either, but there’s no getting around the fact you’re not up to factory spec at the moment. Nor are you likely to be for some time. Face it, Max, you’ve had a shit year. All that stuff with the Time Police. The Battle of St Mary’s. Then you were shot. Now this. But I agree that for you to leave even for three months could be a disaster for the History department, so I’ve had a brilliant idea.’

He finished his apple and bowled the core accurately into the waste bin.

‘Howzat!’

It really is quite difficult to keep historians on track, sometimes.

I prompted him. ‘Brilliant idea?’

‘Ah. Yes. How do you fancy a spot of swinging?’

Now I was baffled. ‘What?’

‘You know, you chuck your office keys into a hat and I chuck mine, and we swap.’

I tried to pull the bedclothes up to my chin. ‘Swap what?’

‘Jobs. You take my job. I take yours.’

‘No, listen,’ he said as I opened my mouth to protest. ‘You take my job. Chief Training Officer. There are no trainees at the moment, so it’s not particularly onerous, but it will give you the chance to do the thing you’re really good at, which is to plan. If you go to Thirsk then I’ll have to run both departments, or at least oversee your replacement. I won’t have time to do either properly, so the future of my department is at stake as well, so what I’m saying is that you take over the training post. You’ll be off the active list for a while so you’ll have the time to sit down and devise a completely new training plan. The previous one was far too long and cumbersome. We need to get them out there as soon as possible, Max, and without frightening the shit out of them at the same time. Our dropout rate is unsustainable and I need you to address that. So sit down and come up with something. I’ll help. You can pick my brains at any time. In the meantime, I’ll take over your department. With your input, I’ll plan their upcoming assignments and allocate personnel. We’ll work closely together – well, we always do anyway – and everyone’s a winner. You have to think about this, Max, otherwise it’s Thirsk for you, and you won’t know St Mary’s when you come back.’

If I came back. Neither of us said it.

Now he was eyeing up the pile of chocolate on my bedside table.

I reached out painfully and stuffed it all under my pillow, out of his reach.

‘Tim, this is serious.’

‘Yes, I know. It’s serious for both of us, but I think we could take this to Dr Bairstow and he’d jump at it. It’s the ideal solution.’

‘Will you speak to him or will I?’

‘I will,’ he said. ‘I have a modicum of tact and discretion. If you try to do it, he’ll open a branch of St Mary’s in Ulan Bator and the two of us will be staffing it until the end of time. He’ll be along to see you tomorrow. If we put our heads together now, we can have something to offer him then and with luck, he’ll change his mind.’

We talked for the next hour. He took notes on his scratchpad and left it with me when he departed.

I was so unsettled that I actually forgot the chocolate under my pillow, which was discovered the next day by Hunter when she made the bed. Spending the night under my pillow had not done it any good at all. I didn’t bother listening, telling her I’d always wondered what Markham saw in her, and relations between us were temporarily severed.

Left to myself, I got to grips with the whole matrimony issue by ignoring it. I pulled out Peterson’s scratchpad and spent an hour or so reading through what we’d come up with so far, adding comments and suggestions of my own.

Hunter brought in tea and was so incensed at finding me working that she forgot we weren’t speaking and more than made up for lost time. I let her run down and then asked for a data table. She slammed the door behind her.

I don’t know what Peterson said to Dr Bairstow, but it appeared to have been successful. He turned up the next day.

‘Good afternoon, sir.’

‘Dr Maxwell. I believe there is something you wish to say to me.’

My heart slid sideways in panic. How did he know? Had someone blabbed? Where was Leon when I needed him? Oh yes, a thousand miles and six hundred years away.

I brazened it out. ‘Yes, sir. Something very important.’

‘Indeed? Then please proceed.’

He was laughing at me – I knew it. However, he’d invited me to proceed, so I did.

I laid out the work I’d done so far on the new training schedule. He took the scratchpad and carefully read it through.

‘It’s only preliminary thoughts, sir.’

‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You appear to be introducing our trainees to the joys of actual assignments much earlier in the training process than before. Do you feel that is wise?’

‘I think, sir, that they should be made aware of the realities of the job quite early on. We don’t want to spend a fortune training someone only to have them bottle out on their first assignment. I’ll build in safety measures, of course, but if you agree, then that is the direction in which I would wish to proceed.’

He handed me back the scratchpad.

‘There are some interesting ideas there, Dr Maxwell. I look forward to seeing what else you and Dr Peterson manage to come up with. Yes, you may proceed. Was there anything else?’

‘Not at this moment, sir.’

‘Do I assume there will be something else in the near future?’

‘Bound to be, sir.’

He gave me one of his enigmatic looks and left the room. Well, that had been easier than I thought it would be. It was only afterwards that I wondered whether Peterson and I swapping jobs had been what he intended all along. Sometimes I think he quite enjoys being the puppet master.

I recovered surprisingly quickly, but, as Helen said, I wasn’t ill. There was just a problem with my knee, which had been repaired. Once I’d recovered from the operation, everything was fine. I was heaved to my feet less than twenty-four hours later. The next day I was on crutches. They chucked me out after three days. I still limped a lot, especially when I wanted sympathy and I couldn’t run – yet – but that would come. My urine returned to its previously unexciting hue and I was unleashed back into the world.

They returned from Site Two five days later. Provided I did it sitting down, I was allowed up to watch their return from the gantry. They filed out of their pods, looking grubby and tired, but they’d been successful. You can always tell.

Leon was last out. He closed the ramp behind him, looked up, smiled for me alone, and something inside me eased a little.

We discussed the details later over a bottle of wine. The paintings were safely concealed. Thirsk had been advised. An expedition would set out next year. We were back on track.

Most importantly, Dr Bairstow was, if not in a sunny mood, at least a little less frosty than usual and Leon said that now was the ideal time to break the news of the matrimonial trauma heading his way.

I was less sure but we couldn’t put it off forever.

We limped to his office. Well, obviously, I limped, Leon walked normally. Albeit very slowly. I’d had crutches and become so fed up with the jokes (you’ve never heard unsophisticated humour until you’ve heard St Mary’s apparently unending supply of crutch jokes) that I’d gone to see Professor Rapson and demanded to be upgraded to a stick and please would he make me one.

The result was one lean, mean, made-to-measure walking stick; matte black and with red and orange flames curling around it. I’d wanted a swordstick – who wouldn’t? – but he’d said no, he’d had instructions from Dr Bairstow, so I had something similar to David Sands. Stun gun, built-in compass, weighted handle for those blunt-instrument traumas, and a little compartment containing something fiery for the little emergencies life continually tosses my way. I was delighted with it. David Sands had given me a few handy tips on stick wielding and, up until this very moment, I’d been ready for anything.

Now, as we headed for Dr Bairstow’s office, I wasn’t so sure.

Mrs Partridge waved us straight in.

He looked up as we entered. ‘Goodness me. Both of you. To what do I owe this pleasure, I wonder? As it happens, I was just about to send for you. The Chancellor has just telephoned to say the joint Thirsk/Italian expedition has been set for the coming March. She would like to know if anyone from St Mary’s would care to join them. She felt it would be appropriate for St Mary’s to have a presence. I don’t need to tell you what an honour that is. Max, perhaps you could give that some thought, please.’

I nodded.

‘So, what can I do for both of you today?’