The Door That Led to Where (5 page)

Ingleby walked on ahead. There was little choice but to follow him, though AJ's street wisdom told him that whatever century he was in it was unwise to accompany a man who was most probably a poisoner. If this had been the Clerkenwell AJ knew, where the road to Islington was tarmacked, not cobbled, where there were proper pavements, where there was a London bus, he would have jumped on it and gone home. But he wasn't even sure which direction home might be.

Ingleby stopped abruptly.

‘Mr Jobey, can you walk a bit faster? We have an appointment.'

‘Appointment for what?' said AJ, jumping back to avoid being covered in mud by a passing horse-drawn cab.

‘If you keep dawdling and staring we will never be done with the business of the night,' said Ingleby, taking hold of AJ's coat sleeve.

‘Do you know Mr Baldwin?' said AJ, playing the innocent. ‘He's been poisoned.'

‘That doesn't surprise me in the slightest, Mr Jobey,' said Ingleby. ‘There are some in this city – and in yours – who would willingly pepper his dish. A greedy man, Mr Jobey, has many enemies. I am not saying that I would not poison him; I'm not saying that I could not; I am only saying that I did not.'

‘You mean he – Charles Baldwin, QC – comes here?' said AJ. He was amazed to find himself in this past world, let alone to learn that his boss had been there before him. Still reeling from the news, AJ at first didn't notice a band of men come marching towards them in a drunken military order of sorts, colours flying, swords drawn. They marched to the beat of a kettle drum. One handed AJ a leaflet.

‘Hockley?' he said, reading it.

‘Bear-baiting, is that it?' said Ingleby with interest.

‘Yes,' said AJ, screwing up the leaflet and stuffing it in his pocket.

‘Not to your taste, bear-baiting?' said Ingleby, laughing. ‘You can't use the future, Mr Jobey, to wash clean the past.'

At Chancery Lane they came to the gate to Gray's Inn. From a ramshackle shed that AJ had never seen before came a gatekeeper, pulling his muffler tight. He nodded to Ingleby who walked on until the gatekeeper called him back.

‘Haven't you forgotten something?' he said. ‘A man in my position needs to keep his strength up on a cold night like this.'

‘You are a rogue.'

‘Then I'm in good company, Mr Ingleby,' said the gatekeeper. He weighed the coins that Ingleby put in his hand. ‘How does your magpie do?'

‘His Honour? Middling to fair. Middling to fair, now you've robbed him of his supper.'

In the gaslight, Raymond Buildings looked newly built, more upright. Time hadn't burrowed into it. At number four, the name in gold writing on the door read
Groat Stone
. Inside, new sandstone stairs, bare of the institutional carpet AJ trod every day, led up to one thing he could place in his time – the black gloss door. Even that had yet to acquire the years of repainting. The layout of the chambers was completely different. This, thought AJ, is what it must have originally looked like. In the outer office were clerks' tall desks and a small fireplace. Through the glass panes of another door AJ could see an inner office. Here was a large fireplace with a carnival of a blaze in the grate, and behind a majestic desk sat a stern, straight-backed gentleman with glasses on his head and glasses on his nose. In the flickering candlelight he appeared to have four eyes instead of two. His face, drained of all colour, glowed bone-white.

Ingleby opened the glass-paned door.

‘This is young Mr Jobey, Mr Stone.'

All four eyes looked up to examine AJ.

‘Here is snuff enough to tickle the nose of even the strongest resistance,' said Mr Stone. ‘You, sir, are a very mirror in which your father's face is reflected. And if any querulous soul is in doubt of your paternity then the proof is the charm you have upon you.'

AJ realised that far from feeling terrified – an emotion the situation surely demanded – he was positively excited. If this was real, and so far there had been nothing to prove it wasn't, then he was in one of the most extraordinary situations that any young man could find himself. This was his beanstalk in the gutter of time.

Mr Stone was writing in a large book that lay open on his desk. Methodically he changed over his metal-framed glasses so that the pair from the top of his head found themselves on his nose and the pair on his nose found themselves on the top of his head. He put down his pen, closed the book, stood and went to the fireplace. From a jar he took a clay pipe and lit it.

‘You are wondering, Mr Jobey, about the door.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Do you know the rhyme about the magpie?

‘No.'

Mr Stone took the pipe from his mouth.

I will tell you the secret that is not to be told. Old Jobey, your grandfather, possessed a door to an unimaginable future. It had never been opened in living memory. Years ago it was believed by those who knew the door existed that by the twentieth century the world would have been destroyed. That was until in 1809, when Old Jobey, whose fortunes were dwindling, decided to look for himself. He took no notice of my warnings – far from it. I told him I feared he could be walking into the abyss. He was a stubborn man – he never listened to advice. He went through the door and discovered he could profit handsomely by trade with the future. Not being a young man, he took a partner, a Mr Samuel Dalton, and it was then that two greedy men started to break every rule.'

‘There are rules?'

‘Every game has its rules, Mr Jobey,' said Mr Stone. ‘And it is a rule of time travel that you do not do business with the future. It is forbidden.'

‘Who by?' asked AJ.

‘By gravity, by the laws of physics. The future has, by its very nature, to remain unwritten, always to be a blank page. When your grandfather handed the key to your father, Lucas, it was already too late. His fate and the fate of his family were sealed. And there lies the sorrow.'

‘What about my father?' said AJ. ‘Is he still alive?'

‘Three for a wedding, four for death. Your father was murdered. The mystery of who murdered the Jobey family remains, as far as I'm concerned, unsolved. An innocent girl was sent to the gallows for it and the door has stayed unlocked ever since. We were only lately informed of your existence.'

‘Who by?' asked AJ. ‘By Mr Baldwin?'

‘No, not Charles Baldwin,' he said with distaste. He carried on. ‘According to Old Jobey's will, the house in Clerkenwell, with all its goods and chattels, is to be inherited by the first-born Jobey of each generation. That first-born, sir, is you.'

AJ felt the key in his waistcoat pocket.

Mr Stone relit his pipe. A whirl of smoke hid his features. ‘The door must be locked by a Jobey, and locked forever, from this side or the other. The question is, Mr Jobey, on which side do you belong? Here in the past or in the future?'

‘Can I think about it? I might want to come back and look around.'

‘I would urge you, Mr Jobey, to return to your own time and stay there,' said Mr Stone. ‘Lock the door behind you when you leave and put the key through the letterbox.'

‘Why would I want to do that?'

Mr Stone looked at AJ as if he were a simpleton.

‘Have you ever heard of Janus, Mr Jobey?'

‘No,' said AJ.

‘He is an ancient Roman god with two identical faces, one that sees into the future, the other into the past. The guardian of doorways, he does not take kindly to those who cross Time's threshold. Old Jobey, your grandfather, paid no heed to my words of advice. He found he had a lucrative trade with the twentieth century. He sent his son there when he became too infirm to go himself. Too late he decided to lock the door. He wanted Lucas back where he belonged. But the damage was done and the key lost.'

AJ shivered.

‘The two stone faces above the door.'

‘Yes, Mr Jobey, one on each side. They are there to remind all who hold the key of their duty to the past and to the future. I advise you to do as you are told. It is for the best.' He handed AJ a small box. ‘It has been a pleasure to meet Old Jobey's grandson. Please accept this very fine snuffbox as a token of our gratitude for bringing the key back to its rightful place.'

AJ knew when he was being fobbed off. There was more going on here than some pathetic story about some old Roman geezer he had never heard of who held a grudge about being Time's bouncer. He found his hand had instinctively tightened round the key and he made up his mind not to let it go.

‘So that's it?' said AJ. ‘You want me to lock Jobey's Door and post the key back. Then what?'

‘Nothing,' said Mr Stone. ‘All will be as it should be.'

‘But the key is rightfully mine, you said so. Goods and chattels and all that.'

‘Ah  …  rightfully yours until you pass it back through the door. Then, by the terms of your grandfather's will, it reverts to the custody of Groat Stone. It will be destroyed and the future and the past will have no more inconvenient leakages. And you, Mr Jobey, will not be tempted to repeat the fatal mistakes of your grandfather and father.'

‘Hold on a minute. In my life I've never had much chance to dream, and the dreams I have had have amounted to nothing. Now I've come across the improbable impossible, you want me to come over all Boy Scout and hand the key back to you? For a snuffbox? You must be joking.'

‘I am sure the past has little to offer a young man of your talents.'

Mr Stone returned to his desk and his four eyes returned to the book in which he had been writing.

‘I think you'd be surprised,' said AJ.

Outside the sun was lazily rising as London washed the sleep from her eyes.

‘Bloody hell,' said AJ. ‘Who would believe this?'

He looked back at the long slab of buildings he had just left. Overhead, the scrawl of gulls, white against a grey sky. The bells of St Clements rang and clerks in hats and mufflers rushed through the gate to work, just as they did in his own time. The difference was the absence of the electronic jungle. Here life was raw, rude and real.

‘What year is it? I mean, here?' asked AJ as he and Ingleby set off towards Farringdon Road.

‘The year is 1830. The old king, George, died in June and William is our new king. The Duke of Wellington is prime minister.'

‘Where does Charles Dickens live?' asked AJ.

‘Never heard of him. And if you are going to tell me something about the future I would rather you didn't. I have always been superstitious: hats on beds, shoes on tables. The future isn't for knowing.'

By now the streets were beginning to fill with bustle and clatter. This was the same London AJ knew, had always known; the same and yet it was a foreign country.

‘Mr Ingleby,' called someone in the crowd. ‘Mr Ingleby, wait.'

Coming towards them was a young woman. Though walking quickly she didn't wave or run but seemed confident that her voice alone would attract Ingleby‘s attention.

‘Miss Esme,' said Ingleby. ‘What finds you up so early?'

‘Mr Ingleby, I was on my way to your house. It is my father. He has been taken ill and is asking for you.'

‘Asking for me?' said Ingleby. ‘Why on earth does he ask for me?'

‘There is something he wants to tell you. I don't know what it is. He has been feeling unwell for several days but yesterday morning he came down with a fever so severe that he took to his bed. By the afternoon he was complaining of pains in his stomach and that he found breathing hard. Mrs Meacock called for Doctor Seagrave to come. He did, and bled my father to no good effect, and now he is worse. The doctor doesn't think he will see the day out.'

‘What does the doctor think ails him?' asked Ingleby.

‘He cannot be sure but he says the symptoms are similar to those found in cholera.'

‘Cholera?' repeated Ingleby. ‘I hope for all our sakes that the doctor is wrong. So far London has been spared that disease. It seems unlikely that your father should be its first victim in the city.'

‘I agree,' said Miss Esme. She looked Ingleby straight in the eye and said, ‘I believe he has been poisoned. Last night he became more agitated. I sat with him and twice he tried to leave his bed saying that he would not rest until he had spoken to you and only you. Mrs Meacock said he was delirious and we should ignore him. This morning he pulled me close and whispered, “Bring Ingleby – do it now.”'

AJ could tell that Ingleby was torn. He had been given his orders and they were to take AJ back to the house in Clerkenwell. It was obvious that he wasn't keen to visit a man who was suspected of dying of cholera. AJ wasn't keen to be late for work but an experience like this didn't happen every day.

Miss Esme said quietly, ‘My father keeps saying if he doesn't see you he will take his secret to the grave and then the truth will be forever buried.'

These words had an immediate effect on Ingleby's indecision and he waved down a hackney cab.

‘St John Street, and be fast about it,' he shouted. ‘Mr Jobey, I doubt we are going to the house of a cholera victim, but who knows.'

‘We won't catch it,' said AJ. ‘It's spread through filthy water.'

‘Well, that is reassuring,' said Ingleby.

‘Are you a doctor?' asked Miss Esme.

‘No,' said AJ.

‘Then how do you know so much about this terrible plague? Have you been following the news from Moscow where so many people have died? They say it is only a matter of time until London is affected. I have read nothing about water, only that you catch it from the smell in the air.'

‘That's rubbish,' said AJ. ‘Anyway, if I remember rightly, cholera won't reach here until the end of next year.'

Ingleby let out a loud and meaningful cough.

‘My friend here has some far-fetched ideas. Ahead of his time, you might say.'

‘I didn't catch your name,' said Miss Esme.

‘Mr Jobey is soon to be gone from the metropolis,' said Ingleby. ‘Abroad,' he added.

AJ smiled at the young woman and she turned away and looked out of the window.

He sat, taking it all in, recording every detail with his senses – his eyes, his ears, his touch. He missed nothing: the battered leather seats that smelled of horse, stables and tobacco, the way the carriage went hard over the bumps, the noise of the street criers, the snorting of horses, metal-rimmed wheels clattering over cobbles.

‘Where are we?' he asked.

‘Coming up to Clerkenwell Green,' replied Ingleby.

‘Have you never been this way before, Mr Jobey?' said Miss Esme.

‘It's much changed since I was last here,' said AJ.

Strange, thought AJ. If her old dad is about to hang up his clogs forever, shouldn't she be a tad more upset? She seemed so calm. He tried to think how he would feel if the red reptile was on her deathbed. Yep. Maybe he would be sitting there just like this girl, staring out of the window, loving the sun of a new day.

The carriage drew up outside a tall, grand house in St John Street and Miss Esme led them in. The hall was in darkness. The door of the dining room stood ajar and an unpleasant smell wafted from it. AJ glanced in. A couple of chairs had been knocked over and on the floor, silver and china were scattered all around. A linen tablecloth was covered in bloody vomit. It certainly looked like something not altogether kosher had been going on.

A woman appeared on the stairs. In the gloom it was hard to see her face. She was small and nothing about her said welcome. This must be Mrs Meacock, thought AJ.

‘Mr Ingleby. You should not be here,' the woman said.

‘My father requested I bring him,' interrupted Miss Esme, her voice tight.

‘There was no need, no need at all. I told you to leave well alone, dear.' The woman smiled at the girl but her eyes simmered with rage. ‘I am sorry, Mr Ingleby, Miss Esme has these flights of fancy. They seem to be occurring more frequently. Unfortunately Mr Dalton is too ill to see anyone.'

Dalton, thought AJ. Mr Stone said Old Jobey's business partner was called Samuel Dalton.

A woman came up from the basement carrying a jug of steaming water. Just then there was a cry from upstairs.

‘Ingleby! Is he here?'

To AJ's surprise Mrs Meacock barred everyone from going up and told the woman with the jug to stay in the kitchen.

‘I will call you when you're needed, dear Mrs Renwick,' she said sweetly.

As far as AJ could see, the best thing they could do was call for the emergency services. He had to remind himself where he was, and he was wondering what would happen next when Ingleby said firmly, ‘Out of my way, madam,' and ran up the stairs.

‘But Mr Dalton might well be infectious,' said the saccharine-voiced housekeeper.

AJ noticed that all the while she had her hand on the girl. He followed them up to Mr Dalton's bedchamber.

This, like the dining room, had been trashed – the hangings of the four-poster bed lay on the floor. The man in the bed pulled himself upright, his hands reaching out to Ingleby. Then he stopped and stared wide-eyed at AJ as if he'd seen a ghost.

‘Have you come for me?' he shouted, pointing at AJ. ‘I tell you, I knew nothing of it, that is the honest truth. I asked for none of it. None of it.'

‘I fear it might be cholera,' Mrs Meacock said, stroking his brow. ‘That is why it is not safe for any of you to be in this room. I must ask you all to leave.'

‘Too late, you're too late!' cried Mr Dalton. ‘It's all done with.'

He collapsed on the pillows.

Why was no doctor present, AJ wondered – and he noted something else about this uncomfortable scene. Miss Esme was staring out of the window as if oblivious to her father's distress.

‘Where's the doctor?' AJ whispered to her. ‘At least a nurse should be here.'

‘The doctor said he would be back in an hour with more medicine but we have yet to see him.'

Again Mr Dalton rose and again he pointed at AJ.

‘Have you come to take your revenge?'

Mrs Meacock turned on Ingleby.

‘There,' she said. ‘You are only making matters worse. Miss Esme should never have brought you.'

She pulled vigorously on a velvet rope beside the bed.

Mrs Renwick appeared at the door with the same jug of boiling water and the housekeeper shooed them all from the room.

‘See what you have done, my dear?' she said to Miss Esme.

Ingleby didn't wait to hear more. He pulled AJ out of the house and onto the street where he hailed another hackney cab.

‘That man used to work with my grandfather, didn't he?' said AJ. ‘So why did he want to see you so badly?'

‘Best you forget all you have seen, best by far,' said Ingleby.

‘No,' said AJ. ‘Why did he think he knew me? Did he think I was my father?'

Ingleby didn't answer.

At the tumbledown house where AJ's adventure had started the night before, Ingleby said, as he opened the door, ‘No need to go upstairs. Your clothes are in a bundle on that chair. Now, when I let you out, just close the door behind you and you will find yourself back where you came from.'

‘Not so fast,' said AJ. ‘I'm going, but first answer my questions.'

‘Mr Jobey,' said Ingleby, ‘my advice to you is to lock the door, post the key through the letterbox and let the past well alone.'