THE TIME THIEF Read online

  When Dr. Pirretti let the Dyers know that she would be traveling to Manchester along with Russ Merrick’s antigravity prototype, Kate’s dad offered to pick her up from the airport. He was on the point of leaving, and eating a quick snack, when something caught his eye in the Sunday paper.

  “Just take a look at this!” he cried out from the dining room, sloshing coffee into his saucer in his excitement.

  He walked into the kitchen holding open the flapping newspaper for everyone to see. “This, if I am not very much mistaken, is our fugitive from the eighteenth century!”

  “Let me have a look,” said Sam, ducking under Dr. Dyer’s sweater-clad arms and popping his head between his dad and the newspaper.

  “Oooh! Is that the Tar Man? Mum, look! He’s blurring!”

  Mrs. Dyer looked over her husband’s shoulder. “How do you know it’s the Tar Man? He’s got his back to us.”

  “I’d recognize that crooked neck anywhere.”

  “What on earth is he doing with a painting of a horse?”

  “Not any painting of a horse—it’s by George Stubbs. The National Gallery paid a lot of money to keep that picture in the country….”

  “Has the Tar Man stolen it?” asked Mrs. Schock.

  “Strangely, no….”

  “What’s he doing, then?”

  “From what they can tell, all he’s done is stuck a red dot on the bottom right-hand corner of the painting!”

  “What, like it’s been sold, you mean?” asked his wife.

  “Exactly!”

  Mrs. Schock laughed. “What do the police think he was up to?”

  “They’re treating it as a stunt—they can’t figure out how or why he did it but, as nothing has been stolen, I doubt they’ll be spending much of the taxpayers’ money pursuing the matter….”

  “Once a thief, always a thief…. Do you think we should contact the police?” asked Mrs. Dyer.

  “You can’t, Mum!” said Sam. “Not without telling them about time travel.”

  “If he starts murdering people, rather than sticking red dots on equestrian paintings,” said Dr. Dyer, “then we’ll have to think again. But right now we’ve got other priorities….”

  The arrival of Dr. Pirretti, and with her Russ Merrick’s antigravity machine, brought renewed optimism to the farm. Dr. Dyer had the machine transported from Manchester Airport to Derbyshire disguised as a fridge-freezer. The machine was not complete, and working from Tim Williamson’s notes which Dr. Dyer had smuggled out of the NCRDM laboratory along with a large suitcase of equipment, the two scientists toiled, almost without a break, in the old dairy until they were satisfied with their modifications. By the time they had finished, the only difference, to the best of their knowledge, between Tim’s original machine and this copy was the addition of a security device. The latter had been Dr. Dyer’s idea and it demanded the input of a code before it could be switched on.

  “What happens if you forget the code?” Sam asked the day the work was completed.

  “I won’t!” said Dr. Dyer.

  “I’d write it on my wrist!” said Sam. “And how are you going to get back to the right time?”

  “That’s at least the third time you’ve asked me the same question, Sam! We’re going to set the power to an identical level as before—six point seven seven megawatts, as it happens. The antigravity machine should, in theory, travel back the same distance in time. So, hopefully, I should arrive in the summer of 1763.”

  “What happens if you miss?”

  “Then I’ll just have to come right back again, won’t I?”

  Dr. Dyer was in favor of telling their colleagues in the antigravity project what they were attempting to do, but Dr. Pirretti refused.

  “As far as they are concerned I’ve already destroyed the machine along with all the documentation. And that’s how I’d like it to stay, for now, anyway. If we fail … perhaps I’ll have to think again.”

  Dr. Dyer knew from bitter experience how long it took to travel even a few miles in 1763. He wanted to get as close to Peter and Gideon as possible and so made the decision to transport the machine to Hawthorn Cottage, for he suspected that Gideon would take Peter back to Derbyshire rather than risk staying in London. The only problem was that they did not know the location of Hawthorn Cottage, or, indeed, if it still existed. Mrs. Dyer and Mrs. Schock, helped by Megan and Sam, visited the local records office and combed through old manuscripts and maps. By the end of the second afternoon they had found a legal document dating from the early 1800s which clearly indicated a certain Hawthorn Cottage which was situated around a mile away from Kate’s school.

  “It has to be it!” Megan cried when she spotted it. Mrs. Dyer and Mrs. Schock agreed, and they all dived into the Land Rover, intent on taking a look at it before it got too dark. Mrs. Dyer found that she already knew the cottage, with its pretty garden, whose gray stone walls had been more carefully preserved than its original name. She had often passed it although she was not acquainted with its owners. It brought a lump to her throat to associate it with Gideon Seymour, who now seemed so real a person to her.

  It was the eve of Dr. Dyer’s departure. Dr. Pirretti and Dr. Dyer had taken a turn around the farmyard. Before they entered the farmhouse, for they did not want to cause any upset on this of all nights, the scientists agreed between themselves that Dr. Pirretti should stay behind. If Kate’s father failed to return, Dr. Pirretti would have to decide whether—or not—to build another machine.

  When they entered the red and cream dining room, they found that they were the last to sit down around the long table. The little ones had been in their beds long ago and the six conspirators, as Megan had dubbed them, had helped prepare what, to his wife’s annoyance, Dr. Dyer kept referring to as his last meal. Every time he had done so, Mrs. Dyer had flicked him hard with a tea towel.

  Everyone had been as upbeat and cheerful as they knew how. Mrs. Dyer had laid the best check tablecloth and lit the room with candles, Sam had lent his dad his lucky stone, a fragment of Blue John from the underground caverns in Castleton, and Dr. Pirretti had brought along two bottles of ros’ champagne—one to toast Dr. Dyer on the eve of the rescue attempt and the other, she explained, to toast him on his return. Mrs. Schock asked Dr. Dyer if he could take a small photograph to give to Peter. It had been taken by his granddad a couple of years ago at the seaside in Devon. Peter was lying on a Hawaiian towel on the sand between his mother and father. All three of them were fast asleep and Peter had one arm under his mother’s neck and one under his father’s.

  “Tell him I want it back,” she said. “It’s one of my favorite pictures….”

  Dr. Dyer looked down and nodded. His wife squeezed his hand under the table.

  They were all biting into the rich chocolate truffles which were Megan’s contribution to the supper when Dr. Pirretti spoke.

  “I have a confession to make,” she said abruptly.

  Everyone looked at her expectantly.

  “I’ve been talking to myself.”

  There was general laughter around the table.

  “Never mind, Anita,” said Dr. Dyer. “It comes to us all….”

  “What I mean to say is that I’ve been talking to myself in what I believe to be a parallel world.”

  An awkward silence descended on the low-ceilinged dining room. A burning log fell onto the grate and Mrs. Dyer put it back on the fire with a pair of tongs.

  “I don’t understand, Anita,” said Mrs. Schock.

  “Neither do I. I sure wish I did. But, at the risk of appearing ridiculous in your eyes forever, there is something I feel compelled to tell you….”

  Dr. Pirretti now had everyone’s undivided attention.

  “You see, I get the distinct impression that the voice I have been hearing is extremely concerned about something….”

  “The voice? What are you talking about, Anita?” asked Dr. Dyer in alarm.

  “I think you know that I’ve been suffering from he
adaches and tinnitus since I first came to Derbyshire. I happened to be in St. Paul’s Cathedral a while back. In the Whispering Gallery. There were all these echoey, distorted voices. It’s merely an intriguing side effect of the architecture—the sound waves bounce off the walls in such a way that someone whispering on one side of the dome can be perfectly audible on the other. Anyway, after a while it struck me that there was something about them that reminded me of the noises I’d been hearing in my head for some time.”

  “You mean that you are hearing voices?” asked Mrs. Dyer.

  “Not exactly. If this doesn’t sound too crazy, I am seeing voices. Actually, I now realize, a voice. It just seems like I’m hearing noises until I … tune in … and then it’s more like seeing but there is an element of hearing, too…. I’m sorry but it’s difficult to explain. You’d have to experience it yourself. And accompanying it there is always an intense sensation of recognition, of having lived through it before, of knowing what is going to happen next….”

  “So, er, who do you think is talking to you?” asked Dr. Dyer apprehensively. The memory of Dr. Pirretti talking to him in her sleep when she was in hospital suddenly came back to him. Could his respected colleague be losing her grip?

  “It might be easier if I start with what I think she is saying to me….”

  “She? All right. Start there. What is she saying?”

  “She says the same thing over and over until I get it. You must understand that it’s a little like listening to a radio where there is practically no reception. It’s confusing, and an excruciatingly slow process … and there’s a danger that I’ve misheard or am misinterpreting what she is saying…. Oh, Lord, this sounds such a crackpot thing now that I’m saying it out loud….”

  “Anita! Get on with it for goodness’ sake!” said Dr. Dyer. “If we think you’re mad we’ll chuck you in the duck pond after coffee….”

  “Okay, okay.” Dr. Pirretti took a deep breath. “My overwhelming fear when we discovered time travel was that the one thing we thought we could be one hundred percent sure about—the past—could, in fact, be rewritten. The voice seems to be telling me that this is not the only problem. Going backward and forward in time has created multiple parallel worlds. I think she’s saying that one of the fundamental laws of nature is that you can’t destroy what has already happened…. So you get two worlds: one where things are altered; one where things stay the same. If she’s right I guess there must be a parallel world where Peter and Kate never went to 1763 in the first place but came back to the farmhouse for the lunch….”

  “Which also implies,” said Dr. Dyer, “if she—you—are right, that there could be an infinite number of parallel worlds….”

  “And that we are responsible for the creation of them,” said Dr. Pirretti.

  “Are you seriously suggesting,” asked Mrs. Schock “that there could be many worlds in which there are duplicate Derbyshires and Richmond Greens and Atlantic Oceans … and Sams and Megans?”

  Dr. Pirretti nodded. “It’s impossible to imagine, isn’t it? And so, to answer your original question, Andrew, the person I believe is speaking to me is myself in a parallel world.”

  Dr. Dyer slowly let out his breath in a long, low whistle.

  “Anita, this is, I’m sure you will understand, a little difficult to take onboard all at once….”

  “I know. But I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. My anxiety that she—I—could be right finally overcame my professional embarrassment. I freely admit that the situation is ludicrous. It’s like playing ‘I spy’ in the dark.”

  “It sounds more like ‘Simon says’ to me,” said Dr. Dyer. “Only the identity, location, and reliability of Simon are all extremely questionable…. I mean, is this some kind of advanced telepathy or what?” asked Dr. Dyer.

  Suddenly he felt very tired and found himself becoming intensely irritated with his colleague. Voices! Duplicate worlds! “Anita—is this a long and convoluted way of telling me I shouldn’t go tomorrow? Because I am going back in time to find Kate and Peter and his dad and I am going to bring them back whether your voice says so or not. Is that what you’re trying to tell me—that it’s not a good idea?”

  “I don’t know! If it is true, how am I expected to know the effect of creating multiple worlds on the universe?”

  “Well, I wish my duplicate self in a parallel universe would try and communicate with me, too, and then perhaps I could help out … ,” said Dr. Dyer archly.

  “Apparently he’s been trying,” Dr. Pirretti replied. “He’s been doing the equivalent of bawling in your ear, but you won’t listen.”

  FOURTEEN

  PETER’S NOSE

  In which Mr. Schock gets a close shave, the party encounters a traffic jam, and Kate becomes suspicious

  The morning of September 11, 1792, found Peter Schock in an agitated frame of mind. He was beginning to take delight in getting to know his father on equal terms; he even dared hope that they could become friends for the short time they would have together. So while he desired to put off the day of his father’s departure as long as possible, what he had witnessed happening to Kate in Golden Square had created in him a renewed sense of urgency to repair the antigravity machine. Like a strong light whose afterimage stubbornly refuses to fade and glows, in lurid shades, at the back of the eye, the sight of Kate, terrified and alone, battling with forces beyond her control, was imprinted on his mind. He had felt something which he could confide neither to Kate nor his father. Something long dormant had stirred within him and he sensed, rather than saw, the fluorescent spirals which he so vividly associated with blurring. Yet something had gone wrong: Rather than moving between two different centuries, Kate appeared to be trapped between them. Could the hooks that bound her to her own time have become damaged in some way? The look of abject terror in her eyes haunted him. He wanted to protect his childhood friend who had traveled willingly back in time to rescue him, and it made him sad that his extra years were not enough in themselves to find a solution to her predicament. As a child he had taken it for granted that the grown-ups would always know what to do. Now he understood the reality of it: Despite appearances they often feel as unequal to the task as the children, but with no one else to turn to they must do the best they can. And then, what Augusta, the Reverend Austen’s daughter, had said about Kate flitting about like a bat came back to him. What could it mean? We must depart for France this very day, he thought. Let us hope that this Marquis de Montfaron is as resourceful as Sir Joseph believes him to be.

  There was a soft knock at the door.

  “Come in, John!”

  The footman carried a large jug over to the washstand and, two fresh linen towels draped over his arm, poured steaming hot water into a basin decorated with birds and flowers. He stifled a yawn, having been up in the middle of the night to open the back gate for the night-soil men. They had come to empty the stinking cesspit by moonlight, as was their custom, so as not to offend the nostrils of the sleeping gentlefolk. John had already been up two hours, during which time he had cleaned and polished the entire household’s shoes and boots in a basement room set apart for the purpose. Then, using the force pump, he had pumped up enough water to fill the cistern at the top of the house, from whence, via a simple system of lead pipes, water was available on every floor of the house. Now, after brushing and laying out Peter’s clothes in the adjoining dressing room, it was time to help his master prepare himself for the day.

  Dour-faced John, who had been poached from Lord Chesterfield’s household by Sir Richard Picard more than thirty years ago, had always been a favorite. He affected a world-weary air which belied a wry sense of humor and a fondness for practical jokes which he would never admit to. Hannah now refused to walk up the stairs in front of him after an incident with a feather and a large house spider. For all his gentlemanly appearance now, John still thought of Mr. Peter Schock as the clumsy, fidgety youth who had broken more crockery in his first few visits to Lincoln
’s Inn Fields than the entire Picard family had in a century. John had grown used to his master’s eccentric ways. For instance, he had a mania for cleaning his teeth, which he did after every meal, such was his fear of dental surgeons and what he called their barbaric ways. This fear had always seemed absurd to John. After all, if you did not like surgeon dentists no one would force you to consult with one (what was wrong with some strong twine and a swiftly shut door?). Yet Master Peter frequented them at least twice a year for what he termed “checkups,” and the dentist was more than happy to take his gold. And then there was the annual birthday request to the cook to fry little beef patties which he would eat between chunks of bread with a slice of melting cheese, golden-fried onions, and fried potatoes cut into long sticks. Cook always tried to tempt him with delicacies such as raw oysters or calf’s head pie or tripe in vinegar but, incomprehensibly, he always refused. John liked Peter Schock. He was a good employer—which many weren’t—and he had even paid for a doctor to tend him when he contracted bronchitis the previous January.

  Master and servant conversed little but fell into the comfortable routine of a thousand mornings. Peter pulled off his nightcap, loosened his voluminous nightshirt, and sat on the mahogany chair in front of the washstand where John laid out the toiletries and shaving equipment. When still new to the century Peter had found his relationships with the household staff problematic. Being waited on made him uneasy and he would try to help. His well-meaning attitude more often than not backfired, for it embarrassed the servants, drawing attention to their inferior status and ignoring any satisfaction which they might have felt in a job well done. After a few years, however, Peter had grown so used to his social situation he rarely questioned it and, if the truth were told, would now find life difficult without the constant support and companionship of Hannah and John. The footman took the attar of rose shaving cake and mixed it into a sweet-smelling lather which he applied liberally to Peter’s face with a soft badger-hair brush. His master always closed his eyes to avoid getting soap in them and it was not unusual for him to drift off to sleep again. It amused John to pull faces at Peter at this stage in the proceedings—touching his tongue to the tip of his nose and blowing out his cheeks as far as they would go, ever ready to snap back to a more appropriate expression should his master’s eyelids flicker—but he had never yet been caught out.