THE TIME THIEF Read online

  “But, Dad, Gideon will be on the run!”

  “Well, if Peter is with Gideon, they’ll just both have to be on the run for a while, won’t they? And Gideon, of all people, knows how to handle himself when he’s up against it. If he needs to get lost and stay lost in 1763, he’ll do it. It’s not like today, when you can’t take a step without a security camera pointing at you.”

  “I swore I wouldn’t come back without him. I feel so guilty that he’s still there and I’m here….”

  “It was hardly your fault! Kate, I really think you should get some rest while you can. You look even worse than I feel and we won’t be at the farm for a couple of hours at least.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. You’ll just have to be patient until we can sort this mess out…. Okay?”

  Kate nodded reluctantly. She snuggled up to her father’s shoulder and closed her eyes. She felt terrible, as if recovering from a bad illness. She fell in and out of sleep, vaguely aware of the hum of the car engine and the spasmodic conversation between her father and the woman with the American accent. Once she woke up and heard herself ask, still half-asleep: “Where’s the Tar Man?”

  “I don’t know, love. When I woke up he was already gone.”

  When he was sure that Kate was finally asleep, Dr. Dyer discussed with Dr. Pirretti what they, or rather Kate, should say to the police—not to mention Peter’s parents. They agreed that the only course of action open to them was to insist that Kate was suffering from amnesia. She would have to say that she could remember nothing that happened to her after running down the corridor after Molly in the laboratory.

  “Will Kate be able to pull it off, do you think?” asked Dr. Pirretti.

  “She understands how vital this is. I know she’ll do her best. And although Inspector Wheeler won’t give her an easy ride whatever she tells him, it’ll be much easier for her to deny remembering anything than coming up with some far-fetched story which Inspector Wheeler will take great pleasure in demolishing. If he catches even the vaguest scent of the truth, we’ve had it. We’ll never be able to kick over the traces.”

  They fell silent as the car sped through the foggy night toward Derbyshire. After a while Dr. Dyer said: “I wish I’d managed to tell Peter that his father had tried to telephone him just as he and Kate were being catapulted across time…. They’d had a serious falling-out apparently. It occurred to me a couple of times to say something, but people were around and it just wasn’t the right moment. I don’t know what Peter’s last memory of his dad was, but it certainly wasn’t a good one. It’s too late now….”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Andrew. How were you expected to know that the boy was going to leap off the machine and that an eighteenth-century villain was going to hitch a lift to the twenty-first century?”

  “I feel bad about it all the same…. So what are you planning to do with the antigravity machine?”

  “I’ve told Ed Jacob to keep it locked up in the van until he can find a safe hiding place. Then I want him to go back to the States to see Russ Merrick at MIT. I told you that one of the main reasons we came over to see you after Kate and Peter’s disappearance was because Russ’s antigravity machine vanished without trace the same night as his office cleaner….”

  Dr. Dyer nodded. “And you were speculating that the same thing had happened on both sides of the Atlantic….”

  “Except that now it transpires it was all a red herring. The cleaner wasn’t lost in the mists of time, after all—he turned up in North Carolina.”

  “And the machine?”

  Dr. Pirretti shrugged her shoulders. “It’s a mystery. I feel uneasy about not even knowing whether it was stolen or not. I sincerely hope we won’t live to regret being unable to trace it. Russ called me last night to say that he has nearly completed a prototype of an antigravity machine which incorporates elements of your friend Tim Williamson’s design with his own.”

  “Did you tell him the real reason you commissioned him to build it so quickly?”

  “No … and he’s not going to be happy when Ed tells him that now that we have Tim’s machine I want him to stop work on it. I don’t think I’ll mention that we intend to destroy it….”

  “Destroy it! But surely we should wait until we’ve got Peter back—what happens if Tim’s machine has been damaged?”

  “It’s because of Tim Williamson that I’m in such a hurry to destroy both antigravity machines.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Dr. Dyer, alarmed at the mention of his colleague. “What’s he done?”

  “It’s more a question of what he will do. He came to see me a couple of days ago. He said that if we’ve discovered time travel, before long someone else will, too. You can’t un-discover something. You can’t turn back the clock. Ha! Except now, it seems, you can. He said that it was absurd and illogical to walk away from something so momentous as the discovery of time travel.”

  “And, of course, if you say it quickly enough, that sounds perfectly reasonable,” said Dr. Dyer.

  “He was talking about patenting ‘his’ invention and approaching the Ministry of Defence to ensure that it didn’t fall into the wrong hands …”

  “How can it not, sooner or later, get into the wrong hands? People would kill for such a secret—surely Tim can see that!”

  “I have this sinking feeling,” continued Dr. Pirretti, “that there will never be an end to this…. We’re doomed to failure. A bunch of King Canutes ordering the waves to stop.”

  “I’ll go and see Tim and try and talk some sense into him. I can’t say I’m surprised, though. A bit tough to know you’ve made a world-shattering discovery only to be told that you have to deny all knowledge of it….”

  Dr. Pirretti did not respond and Dr. Dyer saw a frown appear on her face in the rearview mirror. She looked exhausted.

  “I keep thinking about the first nuclear explosion,” she said. “And what Oppenheimer said when he saw that deadly cloud rise up into the sky, knowing that it was his own creation—‘I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds.’”

  “Is that how you feel about time travel?” asked Dr. Dyer.

  “Don’t you? The more I think about it, the more terrified I am by what we’ve done.”

  Kate groaned in her sleep and her father tried to make her more comfortable, tucking in the blue tartan blanket that covered her knees and smoothing back the strands of red hair that tumbled over her face.

  “Is she okay?” asked Dr. Pirretti.

  “Yes. She’s fast asleep. By the way,” continued Dr. Dyer. “I meant to ask how you are doing. Did the hospital sort out your headaches?”

  “No. Plus I’m now having problems with my hearing. Not that I can’t hear … sort of the reverse. It’s difficult to describe…. Sometimes I think I’m …”

  “What?”

  “No … I mustn’t make too much of it. My overactive imagination sometimes plays tricks on me.” She changed the subject abruptly. “What are we going to do about our uninvited guest from the past? I guess it’s our duty to track him down and send him back to his own time—though I suspect that he’ll disappear out of sight never to be heard of again. After all, who’s going to believe he’s from the eighteenth century? What did you call him?”

  “The Tar Man. It’s on account of him being hanged for a crime which he probably didn’t commit. Unfortunately for him, they didn’t find out he was still alive until after he’d been covered in tar and strung up from a gibbet on the village green for the crows.”

  Dr. Pirretti shuddered. “Great … so you didn’t just bring back anyone, you brought back an eighteenth-century villain with a grudge against the world!”

  “It’s not the Tar Man who’s worrying me—it’s Peter. You’re … you’re not actively against trying to rescue him, are you?”

  Dr. Pirretti did not answer right away and then replied: “If you knew, for sure, that going back in time again could potentially damage the universe in some catastr
ophic way we can’t yet envisage, would it be right to risk the safety of the rest of humanity for the sake of one innocent boy? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself—and I don’t know the answer.”

  The evening air in Covent Garden was full of applause and laughter. Large circles of people had formed around one of the street entertainers who are always ready to perform for the crowds near the market halls. This particular entertainer was riding on a unicycle as tall as a bus. He was inviting members of the audience to throw up a variety of objects, all of which he would endeavor to catch on his head, balancing all the while by pedaling backward and forward and holding his arms stretched out wide. Someone had thrown up an empty beer can and he had managed to balance it on his forehead while whistling “Oh my darling Clementine.” This earned him a big round of applause. The Tar Man marveled at the bizarre contraption which the entertainer rode with such skill, and idly wondered about the beer can, which looked as if it were made of metal and yet appeared to weigh so little.

  He stood, half-hidden behind a pillar, under the portico of St. Paul’s Church, which rose up like a small Roman temple on the west side of Covent Garden Piazza. The Tar Man had stood in this selfsame spot so many times in his life—either sheltering from the rain or, more likely, on the lookout for fresh talent, as he watched the spectacle of London’s villains plying their trade. He would admire the skill of a cutpurse filching a snuffbox, or perhaps a lace handkerchief, from a gentleman on his way to see Mr. Garrick in his latest role at the Covent Garden Theatre—and if he was any good his victim would be none the wiser. Or, on a moonless night, he would watch a gang of footpads lurking at the entrance to an alley, waiting for the linkboy to reappear, panting, into the Piazza. The linkboy, paid to escort a party through an unlit passage with his high lantern, would abandon his terrified victims in the darkness, helpless and ripe for the picking….

  The main entrance to St. Paul’s Church was not in the Piazza but at the opposite end of the building through a pleasant churchyard to be reached via Bedford Street. The Tar Man had just come from there and he was not well pleased with the elderly church official who had refused him entry.

  The church was hosting a concert that evening and a soprano’s voice trilled and soared up into the night. It was fortunate for the Tar Man that the police had lost his trail because the sanctuary that he had claimed at St. Paul’s was not going to be granted to him on this evening. The old man had even gone so far as to try and sell him a ticket.

  “I ask for sanctuary and you demand ten pounds!”

  “Or five for concessions. Are you a student or unemployed?” asked the old man, but his outraged interlocutor had already left in disgust.

  Now, as the Tar Man stood looking out over Covent Garden Piazza, refused sanctuary in this world as he had been in his own, his mind turned to how he was going to make his way in this strange, modern world. It would be a new beginning. Powerful though he had been, the Tar Man was tired of being Lord Luxon’s henchman. In this London he would bow to no one…. Fate had led him to the magic machine in Derbyshire and nothing would stop him from making his mark.

  The crowd in front of him burst into peals of laughter. The Tar Man looked over and saw the cause of the merriment. A little girl, perhaps five years old, who announced that her name was La-La, had been invited to throw up some plastic rings for the entertainer to catch in his teeth. She found that she got more applause if she missed, and started to throw them randomly into the crowd instead. Sensing the entertainer’s thinly disguised anger, the crowd was in fits of laughter. Soon, the entertainer had had enough of a child stealing his thunder and wound up the show. He took his final bow and passed around a top hat. The spectators reached into their pockets and coins rained into its silk interior. Those who drifted off without contributing, he shamed by shouting after them. Most of them sloped back guiltily and dropped fat pound coins onto the pile with a clink. When the entertainer thrust his hat at the Tar Man, he glanced up at him and coolly shook his head.

  The street entertainer insisted and poked his hat, jingling with coins, at the Tar Man once more.

  “So you expect me to provide you with free entertainment, do you?”

  The Tar Man laughed in his face in such a way that the entertainer felt obliged to join in even though he felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck.

  “Upon my word, sir, you do entertain me vastly!”

  The Tar Man grabbed hold of the entertainer’s arm with an iron grip and forcibly wrenched the hat from his grasp. He had stopped laughing and was fixing the entertainer with a stare that made his blood go cold. Without breaking eye contact the Tar Man flung the hat and all its contents onto the Piazza so that dozens of coins rolled all over the cobblestones.

  “Oi!” squawked the entertainer and raised an arm in a fist as if to thump him. But the Tar Man easily deflected the half-hearted blow, and taking hold of the entertainer’s ear, he twisted it mercilessly until the man sank to his knees, crying out with the pain of it.

  “Where I come from, beggars have better manners,” the Tar Man commented with an expression on his face that discouraged any thought of retaliation. “Pray that our paths do not cross again.”

  It pleased the Tar Man that his old haunts were as busy and lively as ever. And so respectable now that it made him want to laugh—what sights he had witnessed in these streets! No doubt the men in the dark blue uniforms had put a stop to that sort of thing….

  It is astonishing how quickly novelty wears off. After half an evening strolling around Covent Garden, the Tar Man was no longer shocked at the sight of women in trousers and with their hair cut short. In fact, he even appreciated it, in a way. But how the cloth merchants must suffer, he thought, on account of this fashion. Why, the material needed for one dress in his time would surely clothe three or four women now. He was no longer taken aback by girls revealing their ankles—and knees and thighs, for that matter. And he was already accustomed to seeing the large number of foreign faces. It took him longer, however, to get over the lack of poverty and malnourished faces on every street corner…. Gone were the armies of barefoot children and beggars in rags, skin stretched tight over bone. Instead he saw plump, clear complexions and shining hair and such white teeth! This truly was a land of plenty. He drank it all in and reveled in it. Was the whole of London like this? He loved the shop windows bright as a sunny day and the neon signs and the orange streetlights. The Tar Man quickly learned to keep to the sidewalk and noticed that if people wanted to cross to the other side of the street, they tended to walk over black and white stripes painted on the hard, dark surface. The Tar Man preferred to take his chances and darted through traffic, causing waves of drivers to screech to a halt or sound their horns. But as he played tag with the streams of horseless carriages, he began to take some interest in them. He admired the way they glided along and how the passengers looked so at ease inside. A low, silver carriage, parked on a quiet back street, caught his eye and the desire swept over him to sit inside it. He struggled in vain to open the door and ended up kicking it in frustration. When the vehicle came to life, screaming at him with an unworldly, pulsing, deafening howl and with lights flashing, the Tar Man fled as fast as his legs would carry him. But at the end of the street he turned back to look and saw an elderly man walking past the protesting vehicle, quite unconcerned. Intrigued, the Tar Man walked up to another carriage, this time a large, shiny green one, and waited until no one was looking. This time he did not jump quite as much when his kick provoked a stream of high-pitched staccato beeping. Again, no one seemed to take any notice. The Tar Man smiled to himself. If these carriages could talk, he thought, they would be shouting “Stop, thief!” Save their plea falls on stony ground, for the good citizens do not care a fig for their predicament….

  Back in the main thoroughfares, the Tar Man observed that when people raised their hands, large black carriages would swoop to the pavement, whereupon the passenger would climb into the back and recline on a sp
acious seat and be transported away. Soon he, too, would command a carriage and ride in style through the streets of the city—but not yet. First, he needed to learn the rules of the game … and above all he needed a guide.

  As the evening wore on, he became increasingly tired and hungry and thirsty. He stopped for a moment in front of a French restaurant and peered through an abundant display of flowers at elegant couples who sat at circular tables bathed in pools of gentle light and at attentive waiters in black waistcoats who proffered menus and brushed crumbs off white linen tablecloths. The Tar Man licked his lips. This was a tempting chop house; he could smell meat.

  He made a note of the entrance where waiters periodically appeared laden with plates of steaming food. Then he waited for the right moment and walked confidently into the restaurant, weaving between the tables and making directly for the kitchens. London is a tolerant city that welcomes eccentrics and the Tar Man’s dress—overlarge tweed jacket over knee britches and buckled shoes, with a hairstyle resembling dreadlocks—provoked little comment and at least one complimentary remark. A girl indicated his knee britches, smiled, and gave him the thumbs-up sign. Unsure of the meaning of her gesture, the Tar Man nevertheless bowed his head in acknowledgment and continued into the bright, white kitchen.

  A young chef was pouring brandy over a pan of sizzling steak. He paused for a moment when he saw the Tar Man.

  “Ze toilets is to ze right, monsieur,” he said in a strong French accent, indicating the direction with a wooden spoon.

  The Tar Man nodded and smiled and glanced around the cluttered surfaces. There, near the door, he spotted a row of freshly arranged plates ready to go. The chef tipped the sauté pan so that the gas ignited the warmed brandy. Blue flames shot high into the air. When the chef turned back, the Tar Man had gone.

  Back outside, on Floral Street, the two roast breasts of duck burned into the Tar Man’s hip through his pocket lining. He took one out, blowing on it and passing it from one hand to the other while tearing at its piping hot flesh with his teeth. He discovered that there was some loose change jingling at the bottom of his pocket. He took out the greasy coins and examined them. What I fancy now, he thought, is some decent ale, and he wondered if the tavern he used to frequent nearby was still there. He doubted it but headed, in any case, toward Rose Street. To his delight, there it was, almost the same except, like everything else now, or so it seemed to him, cleaner and more respectable.