TimeSplash (36 page)

“Hey!” Sandra had obviously managed to get her helmet off. “Hey! I could use a bit of help here!”

He shouted back but he doubted she could hear him through his own helmet. He tried crawling backward but he couldn’t budge; he just risked his feet and hands slipping on the cobbles. He had to reach the rail. It was his only hope.

He pushed himself backward with all his strength, twisting and diving for the rail. He caught it with one hand and quickly got his other hand onto it. With a firm grip now, he heaved himself forward, crawling on his belly, dragging Sandra’s dead weight inch by inch up the sheer wall of the wharf. When he could, he stretched out a hand to the next rail and slowly dragged himself farther.

Once he could get his toes against the first rail, he was home and dry. He pushed himself forward until all Sandra’s weight was on his toes, then turned, carefully, onto his back, putting his heels against the rail. Now, with his hands free, he could grab the tether and haul her up. When Sandra’s arm appeared over the edge of the wharf and she took some of her own weight, he almost sobbed with relief. Within seconds he had her over the edge and safely on dry land. They both lay on the ground gasping for a while before Sandra got up and walked over to him. She looked him over then took off her backpack and her harness. She gave him an impatient look. “Come on. We haven’t got all day.”

“You’re welcome,” he said bitterly and struggled to his feet. They packed the harnesses, tether and helmets into their backpacks and, orienting themselves by the river, set off east toward Albert Embankment and Lambeth Bridge. Behind them, the corroded and half-demolished Vauxhall Bridge looked bleak in the dreary greyness of a cold April morning. Jay looked at the grimy, ramshackle wharves and warehouses they were passing through and decided he didn’t much like 1902.

They walked quickly for several minutes, glad of the exercise. Four minutes in the bitter cold of the extratemporal medium had chilled them both to the bone. They reached the southern end of the Albert Embankment without anyone noticing them, but as they neared the more fashionable northern end, the pedestrian traffic increased sharply, as did the number of carriages on the road. Ahead of them was Lambeth Bridge, not the neat bridge Jay knew with its painted arches, but a rickety decaying suspension bridge that he did not look forward to crossing.

They hurried along, Jay increasingly conscious that they must look almost naked in their splashgear compared to the men and women they passed. Everyone wore three-piece suits and floor-length dresses. They were all muffled in coats and scarves and hats. Most of the men had beards and large sideburns, and the women had their hair piled up on their heads. In almost every conceivable way, Jay and Sandra stood out.

“We need to get off the street,” Sandra said. She pointed to a man in a top hat who was staring back at them. He seemed to shrink as he spoke to a companion, then returned to his original size.

“There!” said Jay. Up ahead, a row of four hansom cabs were parked by the kerb. He had thought they would need to cross the river to Millbank before they’d find a cab rank, but was happy to have luck on his side.

The hansoms were two-seaters, with one big wheel at each side of the cab, a single horse at the front, and a high seat at the back for the cabbie. The cabs had little half-doors just behind the horse for people to get in and out of.

“Just like in a Sherlock Holmes vid!” Sandra exclaimed as they drew close. Jay looked at her sideways, worried by how cheerful she seemed about all this.

The cabbies were standing together, chatting, when the two time travellers arrived. The four men looked a rough lot. They wore a variety of coats and hats and two had huge bushy beards. They were mostly in their forties or older, but it was hard to see their faces under so much facial hair.

“Lumme!” said one of them, softly.

They all gaped at Sandra. One of them even took his hat off, he was so amazed.

“I, er, we need a ride to—” Jay began, awkwardly, stopping as a couple of the men turned and looked him up and down. Their shocked expressions made him painfully aware of how odd he must look.

Sandra stepped forward, speaking smoothly and with a sweetness of tone Jay had not heard her use before. “My brother and I are circus performers,” she told them. “Only we seem to have become separated from our troupe.” A couple of the men nodded, as if this explained everything.

“Trapeze artists,” said Jay, and grabbed an imaginary bar, miming a swinging motion. Sandra scowled at him. “I hope you’ll forgive our appearance. We were in a parade, you see. And now, I’m afraid, we’re lost.” She put on a face to match their supposed plight and Jay marvelled at the sympathetic expressions of the hard-faced cabbies.

“Would any of you be kind enough to help us? We need to get to the British Museum as quickly as possible. One of the owners is there. If we can reach him before he leaves, everything will be all right. If not, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

There was a sudden rush of volunteers. The cabbies almost fell to squabbling among themselves for the privilege of helping this beautiful young damsel in distress.

“Oi!” one of them protested, pushing himself forward. “It’s my cab is at the front.” The others subsided, acknowledging this incontestable right. The cabbie straightened himself up, preened himself, and said, “Now then, miss, if you’d care to step this way. You too, sir. And don’t you worry about catching this ’ere owner chap you’re after. ’Arry Endsleigh’s known the length and breadth of all Lunnun for being the fastest cab on two wheels.” He nodded proudly, chest out. He led them to his hansom and handed Sandra inside, averting his face—but not his eyes, Jay noticed—as she climbed in. He closed the doors on them and walked forward to take the nosebag off his horse. On his way back, he stopped and patted the horse’s rump. “Ol’ Bucephalus here might look a bit rickety,” he told Sandra, “but he’s a strong ’un, he is. Mark my words. He’ll get you there.” The man seemed to have grown mesmerised by the sight of Sandra’s legs and simply stopped speaking.

Jay leaned forward, irritably. “If we could get going. We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

The cabbie snapped out of it. “Ah. Um,” he said and dragged himself off to the back of the cab. Shortly, they felt the hansom rock on its springs as the cabbie climbed up to his seat. The reins, which ran from the horse over their heads and across the roof, flicked once and the cab jolted into motion.

Sandra turned to Jay with an impish grin. “I think he likes me,” she said. Jake snorted. “I think the Pope would like you in that outfit.”

“Why do you think we’re getting a ride with no splash starting up?”

“I don’t know. Maybe this guy just wasn’t doing anything that would change the timeline this morning. Maybe his life was just totally inconsequential.”

Sandra grinned at him. “You’re just saying that ’cause you’re jealous.”

Jay realised he was—stupidly and needlessly jealous. He sank back into the cab’s seat, deep in thought, while Sandra peered at the people in the street. Being in love with Sandra was always going to be a problem for him, he realised. A woman so spectacularly beautiful would have guys hitting on her all the time—and not just bristly, old cabbies either. One day someone really cool would come along, and then…

If only she loved him too, loved him so much he’d never have to worry about some other bloke catching her eye. Yet for that to happen, he’d have to be someone else entirely, someone far more glamorous and interesting than Jay Kennedy, soon-to-be-unemployed secret agent. It was a deeply depressing thought.

“Shit!” Sandra threw herself into the back of the cab. “Someone out there was watching me. I saw him start that vibrating thing.”

Jay snapped out of his dismal reverie. He looked around. There were blinds on the side windows and leather curtains across the open front of the cab, above the folding doors. He reached over and drew them all. It was gloomy inside but at least they were private. A hatch on the roof opened, and, as if to dispel any sense of security they might be feeling, the cabbie peered in at them. “You all right in there? Only I heard the curtains closin’ and bein’ as there ain’t no rain nor nuffin’, I thought I’d best ask, like.”

Sandra managed to force a smile. “You’re very kind, Mr. Endsleigh. We just thought it would be better not to be seen in public dressed as we are. We wouldn’t want to offend anyone, you understand.”

“Very considerate of you, miss.” He coughed uncomfortably. “I daresay how there’s plenty of narrow-minded types abaht as might take offence at the sight of a pretty girl in, er, in her professional costume, as it were, but not ’Arry Endsleigh! Live an’ let live. That’s what I says. Live an’ let live.”

Jay reached up and took hold of the hatch. “Very broad-minded of you,” he said. “Thank you.” He closed the hatch, firmly.

He looked at Sandra through narrowed eyes. “You’re too damned good at this lying. It makes me nervous.”

She put a hand on his leg. “I’d never lie to you, Jay.”

She looked sincere, and the hand on his leg was a convincing argument, but she had looked just as sincere telling the cabbie she was a circus performer.

“And why did you tell them we were brother and sister?” he demanded.

She regarded him with her head cocked. “Because I might have needed to flirt with one of them. I couldn’t easily do that if you were supposed to be my husband or whatever, could I? And anyway, it was probably not done for a young lady and her beau to be gadding about town in a hansom. This way you’re my chaperone.” She grinned. “And it explains your grumpy, overprotective attitude.”

Jay sat back again, cross and confused.

“And, by the way,” she went on. “Do you really think it’s appropriate to be sulking about your wounded feelings when the lives of millions of people are at risk?”

Jay opened his mouth to defend himself but found he couldn’t. She was absolutely right. He just couldn’t understand why he was behaving like this.

“How long have we got?” she asked.

He checked his compatch. “Thirty-one minutes.”

Sandra opened the hatch above them. “Mr. Endsleigh?”

The weather-beaten face smiled down at her, revealing teeth she would rather not have known about. “You can call me ’Arry, my dear. Everyone calls me ’Arry.”

“Thank you, Harry. Look, we really need to be at the museum within the next twenty minutes. Do you think we’ll make it in time?”

The cabbie went into a kind of ecstasy, rolling his eyes and his head. “Lord bless you, miss!

Twenty minutes? To get from ’ere to Great Russell Street? At this time of day? In ’Arry Endsleigh’s cab? Well known to be the best ’ansom for a quick trip in the ’ole of Lunnun? Ha!”

He was silent then, apparently believing he had answered the question. He beamed down at Sandra’s legs, happily.

“So we’ll get there in time, then?” Jay asked.

The cabbie turned a frown on him. “I just said so, didn’t I?”

“Of course he did, silly,” Sandra said, shooting a quick scowl at Jay. “Thank you very much, Harry. You’ve been very helpful.” She reached up to close the hatch again but Harry interrupted her.

“If you’ll pardon me asking, Miss, but is that a trace of a foreign accent I ’ears in your voice?”

Without skipping a beat, Sandra laughed gaily. “That’s very perceptive of you, Harry. You have a very good ear. My brother and I are from Canada. Our accents may be strange, but we’re still loyal subjects. God save the Queen!”

Harry pulled back in surprise.

“She means King,” said Jay. “We only got the news in Canada quite recently. We’re still not quite used to it.” He reached up quickly and shut the hatch.

“King Henry the Seventh,” he told Sandra. “Victoria died last year. Didn’t they teach you anything in school?”

Looking chastened, Sandra sat back in her seat. “I didn’t go to school much. I changed foster homes a lot. It was always pretty easy to play truant. It always took them ages to cotton on. A couple of times I got expelled for making trouble.” She turned to him, mustering a little defiance.

“You read my file. I ran off at thirteen and that was the end of it until they put me in the Institute.”

She turned away again with a shrug and flopped back in the seat. “It’s a wonder I know anything, really. I suppose you think I’m a complete dummy.”

“No, I—” He stopped himself giving her an automatic reassurance. He took her hand and waited until she looked at him. “I’m sorry about the life you’ve had, honestly I am. If I ever say anything stupid or hurtful about it, that’s just me being thick. I really don’t mean to judge you.”

Her troubled expression softened into a smile. She leaned toward him and they shared a long, tender kiss.

“So that’s ’ow it is, is it?” Harry’s voice boomed down at them from the open hatch like the voice of Moses chastening the Israelites.

“God dammit!” Sandra cursed and glared up at Harry. “Can’t you keep your beady eyes off me for five seconds, you scruffy old letch?”

The cabbie’s eyes widened in shock and then his face disappeared as he pulled back on the reins, bringing the cab to a halt.