THE TIME THIEF Read online

  The Inspector opened his front door onto an untended garden and walked into the drizzly night with a big grin on his face. He had not felt this cheerful in weeks. Today had taken ten years off him. He walked to the car with a spring in his step and slammed the door shut. He brushed the sweet wrappers and the pile of crumbs off the passenger seat onto the floor, switched the seat heater on to high, and rubbed his cold hands together gleefully. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you had to be so patient to see your hunches come to fruition but today, he told himself, he had been in outstanding, no stupendous, form, and the result had been spectacular! Spec-tac-u-lar! Even Sergeant Chadwick had forgotten not to look impressed.

  It had been sheer coincidence that he was in New Scotland Yard when a colleague was showing his team a video recording of a daring and baffling robbery in one of London’s most exclusive jewelers. The Inspector stood in the doorway sipping a cup of strong, sweet coffee as the video was played over and over again in slow motion.

  The thief had walked calmly into the shop with a sledgehammer, forced all the staff out into the street at knifepoint, and locked the door behind them. Then, as they all stood there, open-mouthed with horror, they watched the thief, who wore a mask and a knitted hat, smash every glass display cabinet in the shop and drop countless pieces of priceless jewelry into a large carrier bag. By now every alarm in the shop was going off and the first police car to respond to the staff’s frantic telephone calls for help had arrived. Unperturbed, the thief merely stood stock-still in the middle of the shop and—there was no other word for it—vanished in front of everyone’s eyes.

  All sorts of theories were put forward, from mass hallucination to developments in nanotechnology (one of the policeman had read an article about a chameleon-like material designed to take on the appearance of whatever it was put next to). Inspector Wheeler, however, was less interested in the “how” than the “who.” He was surprised, though pleased, that no one else had spotted the similarity between the thief’s inexplicable disappearance and the ghostly shenanigans in the Schock÷Dyer missing children case. True, the thief was not wearing eighteenth-century dress as the children had been in the other incidents, but the way that he had disappeared was identical. He presumed that this was because most people seemed to have categorized these previous incidents as manifestations of the supernatural—something which Inspector Wheeler had never been prepared to do. It was not instantaneous. The thief faded over a period of several seconds so that at one point he became transparent and slightly out of focus. The Inspector would never forget seeing the ghostly vision of Kate Dyer lying between the goalposts at her school near Bakewell. She had disappeared before he could get to her. He was now convinced that he had witnessed the first example of this mysterious fading phenomenon. And where had Miss Kate Dyer disappeared to now? Could it be that her second disappearance was linked to this thief in any way? He had always had his doubts about the motives of the Dyer family and that Dr. Pirretti woman for that matter. He was convinced that she had feigned that highly convenient fainting fit when he had questioned her about the children’s disappearance before Christmas. The hospital had been unable to find anything wrong with her—which came as no surprise to him, for she was the picture of health. He knew her type. Organic bean sprouts and jogging. You wouldn’t catch someone like Dr. Pirretti indulging in Chinese takeout. He shrugged. Why was he letting that woman get to him? Besides, what did he care? He had just engineered the first clue in the most baffling case he’d dealt with in three decades.

  Another possible connection to the thief intrigued him. He had seen footage from surveillance cameras of the notorious mad horseman denting the roofs of twenty black cabs down Oxford Street over the New Year. Now that character was in fancy dress. When he saw the thief moving about in the shop it occurred to him that these two men could be one and the same person. It was something about the way he held himself. He had a certain economy of movement, a certain physical poise—and he had a stiff neck. Eyewitness accounts from terrified shoppers on Oxford Street indicated that the horseman had a bad scar down one cheek. It was dark, of course, and he wore a large hat; nonetheless, three independent witnesses were sure they saw a scar.

  The robbery was not, of course, his case and he was reluctant to make a formal request for cooperation—at least not yet. So he had called in a few favors and arranged, discreetly, for six officers, in plain clothes, to patrol the top half-dozen jewelers in central London. If they saw a man with a scar and a suspected neck injury they were to arrest him on suspicion of attempted theft and inform Wheeler immediately.

  At five o’clock that afternoon, less than twenty-four hours since the beginning of the operation, one of his men, at a Knightsbridge jeweler’s, spotted and detained a man with a scar. The arresting officer called the Inspector from the police van en route to West Kensington police station. “You should have seen him, sir,” he said. “He’s either totally reckless or stupid. He walked right up to one of the cameras and tapped it with his fingernail. Which was black by all accounts …”

  Inspector Wheeler gave instructions for the suspect to be put in a holding cell for the night and said that he would drive back down to London to interview him first thing in the morning.

  Inspector Wheeler collected his celebratory takeout and bought a couple of bottles of beer on the way home. As he stood at the front door, juggling the takeout, the bottles, and his door key, a voice startled him so much he nearly dropped his beer.

  “Can I hold something, sir?”

  “Sergeant Chadwick! Do you want to give me a heart attack?”

  “Sorry, sir. I wanted to break the news to you in person.”

  “What news?”

  “The guy with the scar. He vanished again. The van doors were locked. They were stuck in traffic at Hyde Park Corner, and one minute he was there and the next he was gone…. They’ve got no idea how he got out.”

  “Are you telling me they’ve lost him?”

  “’Fraid so, sir. They’re calling him the new Houdini.”

  Inspector Wheeler thrust the bag of Chinese food at Sergeant Chadwick’s chest.

  “You have it. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.”

  NINE

  DR. PIRRETTI’S BOTTOM LINE

  In which Mr. Schock gets on Kate’s nerves and Dr. Pirretti surprises Dr. Dyer

  Sleeping under the same roof as his father for the first time in twenty-nine years, Peter tossed and turned all night. Having come to a decision about concealing his identity, the news that the antigravity machine was broken had planted a fresh crop of doubts into his tired brain. Should he now tell his father and Kate who he was? He heard every hour strike. Finally, at six o’clock, exhausted but wide awake, Peter flung back the bedclothes and stood up. Drawing back the heavy curtain, he surveyed the streaked dawn sky over Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It was a view he had grown to love. Beyond the neatly kept green square with its shrubberies and straight gravel paths, there was a broad swathe of mature trees. Behind them a dense cluster of church spires rose up, perhaps fifteen or twenty, all of them dwarfed by the towering, benevolent presence of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Suddenly a break appeared in a cloud, and sunshine pierced the morning from behind the great dome. Peter felt the urge to wake up his father and share this panorama with him. He was proud of his adopted century, he wanted to tell him of the amazing things he had seen and done and experienced. He was a man of the world now, respected, well-educated, and a wealthy man in his own right; he wanted his father to approve of who he was and what he had become…. Peter shook his head violently. “No, enough!” he said out loud and then, more gently, as if speaking to a small child, “Enough.” He and his father were the same age. In everyone’s eyes they were equals. He must resist this strong desire to please and to seek approval. It was inappropriate for a gentleman at his stage in life and of his standing.

  Peter dressed hastily and, pausing in the hall to pluck the heavy iron key inscribed TRUSTEE OF LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS
from its hook, slipped out of the house into the chill morning air.

  The old watchman, on his way home after a long and uneventful night, touched his hat in deference to Peter and shuffled out of the square liked a tired nocturnal animal. Peter unlocked the iron gate that led to the private garden at the center of the square, the use of which was a privilege accorded to the already privileged residents of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The gate squeaked open and clanged shut, every noise vibrating and exaggerated in the dawn stillness. Peter made his way to the bench where he sat when he felt the need for reflection, his footsteps crunching over the gravel path.

  If Peter had looked up, he would have seen Kate watching him from her attic room at the top of the house. It was in this room that she and Peter had made the blood pact never to return home without the other. It had been from this very window that the two twelve-year-olds had seen Tom betray Gideon to the Carrick Gang. That had been either a few weeks ago or nearly three decades—depending on your perspective. How much had changed since her last visit. Sir Richard Picard, then the owner of the house, who had done so much to help them, had passed away some years ago. Sidney Byng had inherited his uncle’s London residence, though apparently he rarely stayed in it, preferring life in Derbyshire where his mother and most of his siblings still lived. Kate pictured Sir Richard’s alert, fine-featured face and his gentlemanly stance, and it made her feel quite sick to think that he was now dead. And as for Sidney, who had been so taken with her on her first visit—much to Peter’s disgust!—she wondered what kind of man he had grown into. Kate looked down at Joshua Seymour. He seemed lonely and rather sad. She wondered why.

  Down below, Peter took out his pipe and a tobacco pouch and pressed down the pungent, golden flakes with his thumb, ready for his post-breakfast smoke. It suddenly occurred to him that he had better desist. Peter knew perfectly well that his contemporaries’ assertion that tobacco had medicinal properties was nonsense, but, as he enjoyed smoking a pipe, he had conveniently forgotten the truth of the matter. Besides, it had become a point of honor never to disseminate knowledge from the future. Although he did draw the line at drinking river water (he knew what had gone into it), eating anything with mold growing on it (despite accusations of being wasteful), and being served supper by servants with unwashed hands and black fingernails (he had shown great restraint over the years by not explaining the concept of germs). He emptied the tobacco back into the pouch. How his parents had detested the smell of smoke! And how appalled they would be if they saw the clouds of acrid tobacco fumes he was accustomed to sit in at the Chapter Coffeehouse! He had vague memories of seeing packets of cigarettes as a child with SMOKING KILLS! emblazoned on them—but this seemed so ludicrous to him now he wondered if he had merely imagined it.

  Peter’s thoughts turned once more to the broken antigravity machine. What if, he asked himself, the Marquis de Montfaron could not mend it? What if no one could? At that point he would have to admit who he was—but how would he explain his deception? He shook his head, as if trying to scatter the doubts that assailed him onto the dewy grass. It was too early to fear that the machine was irreparable. He would cross that bridge only when and if he had to. In the meantime, he told himself, as soon as I reveal who I am to my father, he will discontinue his search. Of that I am certain. And if he finds the man, he loses the child. For the sake of everyone concerned I must now be strong. Too many lives will be damaged if I weaken. I shall help my father find my younger self. And if this Montfaron cannot repair the machine, we will search and search until we find someone who can….

  Kate watched Joshua Seymour walk back purposefully, ignoring both the cat who wanted to brush past his legs and the coal man who, bent double with a large sack on his back, was struggling to lever up the heavy coal hole cover in front of the house. There is something either strange or familiar about Joshua Seymour, she thought. I’m not sure which…. Then she tried, for the third time that morning, to blur back to her own time. And for the third time she found that she could not. For a moment she thought she could sense luminous spirals reaching out toward her but then they vanished. Perhaps, she thought, I’m trying too hard. But she sensed that something had changed. Changed in her. It didn’t feel quite like the last time. And she wondered if, or when, she would fast-forward again.

  At breakfast the atmosphere was a little strained. Kate noticed that Joshua could scarcely take his eyes off Mr. Schock. He ate little and spoke even less. Hannah came in and out with fresh tea and butter and French rolls fetched fresh from the baker on High Holborn. Meeting Kate again after all this time had made Hannah emotional. She constantly dabbed her eyes and permitted herself to stroke Kate’s hair.

  “Such beautiful hair, Mistress Kate. To think so much has happened in my life, and time has stood still for you! Ah, would that I could be young again which I know I never can be.”

  “But time hasn’t stood still for me, Hannah! It was a mistake! Someone must have tampered with the antigravity machine before we took it. We should have gone twenty-nine years further back in time—and if we had, then you’d still be young….”

  This made Hannah weep even more.

  “I didn’t mean that now you’re old, Hannah…. Oh, dear …”

  Kate did not know what to say as she watched the tears roll down Hannah’s plump cheeks, so she gave her a hug instead. It had been a shock at first to see how she had aged, but unlike Queen Charlotte, she did at least instantly recognize her. After a while every other expression or gesture would put Kate so much in mind of the young Hannah that it was like seeing an older Hannah through the lens of a youthful one. She wondered if that was how her parents saw their friends—not just middle-aged folk with wrinkles and sagging cheeks, but faces that told a history, that had been kids and teenagers and young adults, too, and they could read all of that in their expressions because they had grown older together….

  It transpired that Hannah had left the service of the Byng household to marry and that she was now the mother of two grown-up sons, both of whom were tenant farmers in the Dales. Alas, she had been widowed some twelve years ago and had returned to work for Mrs. Byng at Baslow Hall. Gideon Seymour still managed the estate there. His employer could never speak highly enough of him and he was well-respected throughout the county. Indeed, Mrs. Byng lived in fear that one of the great Derbyshire estates would poach him. Hannah said that she had been reliably informed that Gideon had been made a most handsome offer, but he was too loyal to Mrs. Byng to accept. Although Gideon made regular visits to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, he was currently trying to finish his book of memoirs and had, in consequence, rarely left Hawthorn Cottage these past few months.

  “Oh, we must go up to Derbyshire and see Gideon!” cried Kate, bright-eyed at the thought of seeing her friend again and being able to ask him questions about Peter’s life in a foreign century.

  Peter gulped. He knew Gideon well enough to know that he would never be party to this deception, no matter how well-intentioned were his motives. If Kate saw Gideon he would have to reveal all—and yet he should have foreseen that Kate would want to meet with him.

  “It is a long and arduous journey and the roads are dangerous,” said Peter hastily.

  “But, Joshua, I can’t not see Gideon!”

  “The journey there and back would take a week, probably more. Should not our main concern be the repair of the anti-gravity machine?”

  “I have to agree with Joshua,” said Mr. Schock. “The machine must come first and my leg is still recovering. I don’t want to waste a week visiting an old friend just for the sake of it, Kate—not even Gideon. This isn’t a holiday, after all.”

  “Besides,” continued Peter, “Gideon’s letters to me are full of accounts of murders and robberies. Derbyshire has become a dangerous county….”

  Hannah saw the look of disappointment on Kate’s face and put her hand on hers. She gave Peter a withering look and sniffed. “Why, anyone would think that we did not want Kate to see Gideon….�
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  Peter glared angrily at his housekeeper.

  “But perhaps it is for the best,” said Hannah quickly, meeting Peter’s gaze over the top of Kate’s bowed head, “that you remember Gideon the way he was, not ‘old,’ like me, but blond and heroic and not a single wrinkle on his brow! Do you remember how he taught that highwayman a lesson, Mistress Kate?”

  “Ned Porter?”

  “Yes. A handsome lad. ’Twas a pity the footpads shot him…. I still dream about that night. Of course, he was a bad man.” Suddenly she laughed. “Do you remember scolding me for saying how I liked the looks of Lord Luxon? ‘It doesn’t matter what he looks like,’ says you, ‘he kidnapped Gideon!’ I felt very ashamed, particularly when Gideon was nearly hanged on account of his false accusations….”

  “Ha!” commented Mr. Schock, a smile on his face. “So I am not the only one to be rapped over the knuckles by Miss Kate Dyer!”

  Kate looked hurt, but Mr. Schock, unlike Peter, did not notice and carried on regardless.

  “She has been reprimanding me for speaking out of turn at Kew. I only told Queen Charlotte that Kew Gardens would house the greatest collection of plants in the world. And that during World War II they drilled holes in all of the floors of the Pagoda so that scientists could drop their bombs down the shaft and study how they fell. I mean, where is the harm in that?”

  Kate hesitated and then said softly: “Well, I don’t think it was a good idea to tell her that historians believe King George’s madness was made worse by the medicine his doctors gave him…. What if Queen Charlotte does something about it and King George doesn’t go mad again? … Who knows what effect that might have on history….”

  A flash of guilt streaked across Mr. Schock’s face. Then he looked irritated.