The Wraiths of War (34 page)

She nodded. ‘So?’ Then her face cleared. ‘Oh! I suppose that means it was
you
! The “now” you, I mean?’

I nodded wearily and took out the heart. ‘Why does one job always lead to another? Can you remember the name of the street the cab took us to?’

She frowned. ‘Not off-hand.’

‘Try. It’s only if you tell me that I’ll know where to go.’

She screwed up her face. ‘It was something to do with birds. The name of a bird.’ She closed her eyes and massaged her forehead with her thumb and forefinger, as if she could coax the memory out. It seemed to work, because her head suddenly jerked up, her eyes opening wide. ‘Kingfisher something. Kingfisher Walk! That was it.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘Make me a sandwich. I’ll be back in five minutes.’

I did what needed to be done. I went back a few days, hailed a cab, picked up Clover and Frank from the Isle of Dogs, and explained who I was and what was happening en route to Kingfisher Walk in the East End. Once there, we waited around until my past self appeared – this was the version of me that had been battered by Hulse and his cronies, and Jesus, was I in a bad way! – and then took the cab round to Ranskill Gardens. Once Frank and Clover had been briefed, I used the heart to take me forward, arriving back in the kitchen at Ranskill Gardens to find Clover sitting at the kitchen table, sandwich in hand, chewing.

‘Turkey, salad and cranberry,’ she said, her voice muffled by food. She nodded at the place she’d set for me at the opposite side of the table. ‘Tuck in.’

I put a hand on my belly, lurched across and sank into the empty chair. ‘Give me a minute.’

She regarded me steadily as I took deep breaths in and out, waiting for the nanites to kick in. ‘Travel sickness?’

‘Something like that.’

After a few minutes my guts settled enough for me to eat my sandwich. Once we were done and the plates had been cleared away, Clover said, ‘So? You must be here for a reason. What can I do for you?’

‘Have you ever fancied visiting the Victorian era?’ I asked, and I watched her face light up.

You know the rest. Or, if not, I’m sure you can work it out. I took Clover back to August 1895, introduced her to Hawkins and the staff he’d employed during the two years since I’d rescued him from Newgate Prison, gave her some money to kit herself out in Victorian garb, told her as much as she needed to know and then left her to get acclimatised and to await the arrival both of Hope and my smoke-damaged past self – who Hawkins, having been briefed by me (I was getting pretty good at this by now), would rescue from Tallarian’s lair in the early hours of September 3rd.

I still had things to do to establish myself in Victorian London – I needed to make some astute financial investments in order to accrue my fortune, set myself up with various business interests that would operate efficiently and profitably with minimal involvement from me, and buy the house in Ranskill Gardens – but by now I was reaching critical mass. I’d been desperate to see Kate since coming back from the War, but now I was so far beyond desperate that I’m not even sure there’s a word to describe it. Added to which, the nuts and bolts of setting myself up as a Victorian gentlemen were so boring and long-winded, and seemed to require such a lot of thought and consideration that I simply didn’t have the patience for, that I decided it could wait for another time.

I felt pretty much the same about the other big job that was currently nagging at me, which was the one concerning the Sherwoods. At some point I’d have to put three months aside, maybe more, to recruit them to my cause and then transform them, both practically and psychologically, from naive, strait-laced Victorians into a couple of tech-savvy whizz kids, capable of coping with the onslaught of the twenty-first century. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the thought of undertaking that gargantuan task now, when I had already delayed my reunion with Kate beyond endurance, was too depressing for words. I’d tackle it at some point in the future. When Kate was ten maybe. Or fifteen.

Kate. She dominated my thoughts, and I felt sick with anticipation at the prospect of finally bringing her home. As I ascended the stairs to my bedroom on that day towards the end of August 1893, having just said goodbye to Clover and Hawkins, I felt as though electricity was fizzing through my veins. When I took the heart from my pocket, after changing from my Victorian clothes into my twenty-first-century ones, it was as if it too was aware of, and responding to, my almost feverish anticipation. It seemed to thrum with power, to vibrate with eagerness – or maybe that was just me. There was a part of me that wanted to use the heart to zap myself straight over to that little cottage in Wales where Kate was waiting for me, to finally have the lasting reunion I’d been working towards right there and then. But if I did that I wouldn’t have a car, and would therefore have to use the heart to transport us both back to Ranskill Gardens – and I couldn’t spring that on her, could I? Who knew what effect it would have?

So I forced myself to be patient. And instead of jumping the gun I moved forward in time, but remained at the same location – my familiar but ever-changing bedroom in Ranskill Gardens. I timed it so I’d arrive around five minutes after I’d left on the morning of November 2nd 2012.

The first thing I was truly aware of once the room had settled around me was the rushing sound of water. For a puzzled moment, as the familiar nausea swept over me, I wondered whether it was raining, whether the heart had brought me to the wrong time. Then I realised: it was the sound of the shower in Clover’s en suite further along the corridor.

Once the nanites had done their work I moved along the landing to Clover’s bedroom door. There was still a trail of dried mud on the carpet between my bedroom and hers. Not for the first time I wondered whether I’d ever get used to the vagaries of time travel. It was weird to think that while more than eighteen months had passed for me since I’d last seen her – at least in this timeline – it had been nothing but a matter of minutes for her since she’d hugged me and sent me on my way.

Although I could still hear the shower going, I knocked tentatively on her door, and then, when I failed to get an answer, opened it. Her duvet was in a rumpled heap on her bed and her clothes strewn untidily over the seat of a tall-backed wicker chair in the corner between the bedroom door and the door to the en suite. I crossed to the bathroom and knocked. The rush of water stopped abruptly.

‘Hi, I’m back,’ I called.

Her voice, from inside the shower, was echoey. ‘You were eight minutes, not five. I was getting worried.’

‘Sorry. I got held up in Ypres. Bloody Germans.’

Now her voice was sombre. ‘How was it?’

I hesitated. How could I even begin to express what I’d been through? In the end I simply said, ‘Not much fun.’

She was silent for a moment, then she asked, ‘Are you okay?’ More hesitantly, ‘Nothing… missing?’

I briefly considered making a joke of it –
Only my sense of humour
– but it seemed neither funny nor appropriate. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m fine. I’m going to make some breakfast. It’s been ages since I had a proper full English. You want to join me?’

‘Is the Pope Catholic?’ she said. ‘I’ll be down in ten.’

She padded barefoot into the kitchen almost exactly ten minutes later, her maroon hair still damp. I had bacon under the grill, eggs and tomatoes frying in extra virgin olive oil (my only concession to healthy eating!), beans bubbling in a saucepan and four slices of bread browning in the toaster. I’d set the table and put ketchup, brown sauce, jam, butter, milk and a pot of tea on a mat in the middle. She nodded approvingly.

‘You’ll make someone a lovely wife one day.’

I shot her a grin. ‘Talking of which, I’ll hoover that mud up after breakfast. Don’t want you traipsing it all over the house with your great clodhopping feet.’

The mood became more serious when we sat down to eat and I started to recount what I’d been up to since I’d last seen her. Despite it all, though, I couldn’t help feeling both light-hearted and excited at the thought not only that I’d be seeing Kate later that day, but that I’d actually be bringing her home.

Clover’s playfulness took a noticeable dip when I told her how I’d rescued Hawkins from Newgate Prison and installed him in Ranskill Gardens. She looked around the kitchen, as though mention of him might enable her to glimpse his ghost passing through.

‘Poor Hawkins,’ she said. ‘He was a lovely man. A bit stuffy and… contained, but underneath it he was one of the kindest men I’ve ever met.’ Her eyes suddenly grew dewy and raising both hands, she used the tips of her fingers to swipe her tears away.

‘You okay?’ I asked.

She gave a brisk nod. ‘I’m fine. It was just you mentioning him like that. Caught me unawares.’ She looked around again. ‘You know, sometimes I find it hard to believe he was here in this house, that he walked through these rooms, that his voice echoed from these walls. It seems so unfair we can’t just use the heart to go back and… save him.’

‘I know. But we can’t. Time wouldn’t let us.’

‘Stupid time,’ she said with some vehemence. Then she smiled thinly, as though at her own childishness.

I took a bite of toast. There was silence between us for a moment. Then I said, ‘Hey, guess what I did after rescuing Hawkins and getting him settled in?’

‘Have tea with Queen Victoria? Punch Hitler in the face?’

I smiled. ‘Remember the day I got that note and went to McCallum’s house and ended up getting arrested?’

She looked blank for a moment, then her eyebrows shot up, stretching her eyes wide. ‘That was the day you turned up and took me back to 1895! My God! Is that where you’ve just been?’

‘About…’ I looked at my watch ‘…forty minutes ago I was in Victorian London, saying goodbye to you and Hawkins.’

She raised her hands again and pressed her fingers to her forehead. ‘Wow. Mind blown. For me… well, so much has happened since then. It seems like a lifetime ago.’

‘The blink of an eye,’ I said. ‘All of it. Just the blink of an eye.’

She looked at me as though I’d said something profound. Or as though
she
was about to say something profound. Then to my surprise she reached across and took one of my hands between both of hers.

‘What you’ve been given is an amazing gift,’ she said. ‘And I know it’s caused a lot of grief, but it’s also something you can use for great good. Something you
have
used for great good.’

I shrugged, embarrassed, and also a little uneasy. I couldn’t help but think of people who’d suffered, even died, because of their association with me and the heart.

‘I do my best,’ I said inadequately.

‘I know you do.’ She squeezed my hand as though literally trying to press the conviction behind her words into my flesh. ‘And that’s all you
can
do. You’re a good man, Alex. Don’t ever lose sight of that.’

She broke the connection between us, turned her back and bustled away to make more tea. It was an odd moment, and one where I felt there was a hidden meaning behind her words, perhaps even something she wasn’t telling me. But I didn’t pursue it, because… well, because I felt afraid to, I suppose. Sometimes, instinctively, you don’t
want
to lift the lid of the box to see what’s inside. You just get a feeling that you shouldn’t.

While she was making more tea, I took the opportunity to run up to the office and grab my laptop. I returned to the kitchen and cleared a space on the breakfast table, then opened the laptop up and started Googling car hire places.

After a couple of minutes Clover drifted across with a couple of steaming mugs. She put one down on my right, then moved behind me as she sipped hers, looking over my shoulder.

‘How’s it feel?’ she asked after a second or two.

I glanced at her. ‘How’s what feel?’

‘To know that today, after all you’ve been through, all your searching, you’ll finally be getting your little girl back for good?’

‘Wonderful,’ I said automatically. Then, although I’d been thinking about it all day, the reality of her words hit me, and a warm glow of well-being rose up through my body. The grin that burst from me was a release of unadulterated joy.

‘No, bollocks to that. It’s better than wonderful. Better than anything. It’s the best feeling in the world.’

‘I’m glad,’ she said. She squeezed my shoulder. ‘So when are you heading to Wales?’

‘We,’ I said. ‘You’re coming with me.’

I thought she was being coy simply because she hadn’t wanted to seem presumptuous, but she said, ‘No, this is your day, Alex. Yours and Kate’s. You’re bringing her home, and that’s a big deal. It’s special. So it should just be the two of you driving back together. You need the time and space to get reacquainted. You deserve that. You’ve earned it.’

I swivelled to look at her. ‘Don’t be daft. We’re in this together. We have been from the start. Whether you like it or not, you’re part of this family now. And Kate will love you. I know she will.’

Clover crinkled her nose into an expression that indicated she’d been moved by my words, but didn’t entirely agree with them.

‘That does mean a lot to me,’ she said, ‘but honestly I’d feel awkward. And not because of how you’d
make
me feel, but just because… well, because I would.’ Before I could respond, she rapped me on the shoulder and said quickly, ‘Besides, if I don’t come with you I’ll be able to get Kate’s room ready for her. It’ll be weird for her to arrive at a strange new house, won’t it? But if she’s got a lovely room waiting for her, it’ll make it much easier for her to settle in. She can have Hope’s old room. I could go back to your old flat and fetch some of her stuff…’

She tailed off, breathless and bright-eyed. Again I couldn’t help thinking there was something off about her manner, something she wasn’t telling me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked her.

She laughed. ‘Yeah, course I am. Why?’

‘You’re not in any trouble? You’re not being threatened, or…’ Then it struck me what it could
really
be. ‘You’re not feeling as though you’re in the way? A spare part? Because Kate’s coming home?’