And the Rest Is History
Jodi Taylor
Prologue
I was back at St Mary’s. I was safe. My baby, Matthew, was safe. Leon was safe. Statements I’d once never thought I’d be able to make. These days, the three of us were a contented family unit. I loved Matthew. Matthew loved me. And Leon loved both of us.
Despite his dramatic entry into this world, Matthew was a happy, friendly, normal little baby, who would gurgle contentedly as he was passed from person to person and spoiled rotten, but mostly – he was mine. I was the one to whom he held out his arms first. He always held out his arms to me. I could hardly believe it. Leon laughed and called him ‘Mummy’s Boy’, but the two of us had a special relationship. For me, it was a time of quiet happiness, because none of this was something I ever thought would happen to me.
True, Leon and I were still at St Mary’s. After Clive Ronan’s attempt to kidnap me, Dr Bairstow had requested that, for our own protection, we remain at St Mary’s, and so we had. We had a suite of rooms up under the roof in the main part of the building, which, as Peterson said, were along so many narrow corridors and up so many crooked stairways, that any passing homicidal psychopath would never be able to find us.
He was a happy bunny these days, as well. No one knew what methods he’d used to persuade Dr Foster to marry him, but whatever he’d done had worked. He was regarded around the building with equal amounts of awe, admiration, respect and sympathy.
‘About bloody time,’ I’d said, grinning at him, and Markham had made a rude noise, which was a mistake on his part because attention immediately shifted his way.
‘So what about you?’ demanded Peterson, moving his chair slightly so Markham couldn’t escape.
‘What about me?’ he said, innocence oozing from every pore.
‘Are you married?’
‘Me?’ he said in astonishment.
‘Yes, you.’
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘You did.’
‘Did I? When?’
A few days after Matthew’s somewhat unconventional entry into the world, Markham had let slip he was married. To Hunter. They’d been married for years he’d said, and then nipped out of the door while we were too gobsmacked to stop him. Peterson and I had been attempting to get to the bottom of this ever since, but as teachers, employers, policemen, magistrates, army officers and Dr Bairstow had discovered, Markham can be a slippery little sod when it comes to prising information out of him. He was being one now, grinning at us over his mug of tea. We’d tried every possible approach and were still none the wiser, and neither of us had the nerve to approach Nurse Hunter, the terror of St Mary’s.
We all work at St Mary’s. Or, to give it the correct title, the Institute of Historical Research at St Mary’s Priory. Our job is to investigate major historical events in contemporary time. It’s not time travel because, as Dr Bairstow never fails to point out, we are not living in the pages of a sci-fi/fantasy novel, and no one argues with him, because our lives are hazardous enough without deliberately asking for trouble. So we never mention time travel. Although that’s what we do.
We’re located just outside Rushford at the end of a country lane that goes nowhere, because the Government thought we couldn’t do much damage in this remote corner of a quiet county. That assumption was about as correct as government assumptions usually are. Surely the law of averages dictates that one day they must get at least one right.
Anyway, my name is Maxwell. I’m Chief Operations Officer and returning from maternity leave to a crowded schedule. We had a lot on these days. There were important anniversaries coming up and Thirsk University, our nominal employers, had commissioned an in-depth study of the events culminating in the Battle of Hastings. We were to witness the aftermath of Harold Godwinson’s shipwreck – the one that placed him in the power of William of Normandy, followed by that critically important oath-taking ceremony at Bayeux. Then on to Stamford Bridge – that’s the battle, not the much less interesting football ground – when Harold defeated the forces of Tostig and Harold Hardrada and then, nineteen days later, the struggle at Hastings itself and the end of Saxon life in England. If time and finances permitted, there would be a jump to William’s coronation on Christmas Day, 1066. Something which I wouldn’t be able to attend. We’d had a go at that jump a couple of years ago, allowed ourselves to be distracted and missed it.
The last few months at St Mary’s hadn’t been without incident, either. Only a few months ago, to worldwide excitement, the Sword of Tristram and a crown from the Holy Roman Empire had been discovered in our woods. I was on maternity leave but I wandered up a couple of times, parked baby Matthew under a tree and helped out. The sword and crown were exactly where we’d left them although, as Peterson said at the subsequent piss-up, they were hardly likely to get up and move, were they? There wasn’t much of the sword left – only the pommel and a sliver of metal with a fragment of that all-important verse remaining. The rest was just a dark shape in the soil, but the crown, being mostly of gold, had fared much better.
Dr Chalfont, who had headed the dig, had been reinstated as Chancellor of Thirsk University just in time for them to take credit for the find. Which had been the whole point of us burying the stuff for her in the first place. She had returned to Thirsk in triumph and, according to rumour, the Night of the Long Knives had been nothing in comparison. The panelled corridors of the stately and venerable University of Thirsk had run red with academic blood. Metaphorically speaking. It had been, said the Chancellor, the light of battle still in her eye, an invigorating experience and an excellent opportunity for a great deal of dead wood removal, but she would be grateful if we would we never put her in such a position again. We had nodded and promised.
So here we all were and everything was fine.
I was a member of a happy family – somewhat to my surprise.
Peterson was training to be Dr Bairstow’s deputy.
Markham had been reinstated as Major Guthrie’s number two. And yes, all the bad jokes had been made.
St Mary’s was relatively stable and solvent.
Everything was absolutely fine.
It began as a day just like any other. I awoke to a crisp, frosty morning and decided to go for a run. You can’t use giving birth as an excuse forever. I’ve never been what you might call toned, but even I could see it was time to get into some sort of shape. Yes, I’d been on maternity leave, but I wanted to hit the ground running, so to speak, and therefore a little time spent running now might mean a lot less time hitting the ground later on.
I left Leon and Matthew in the bath, playing Attack of the Deadly Flannels. I’m not sure what the game entails, but there’s always a lot of splashing and shrieking – and that’s just Leon. Followed by massive mopping up afterwards, of course.
I blew them both a kiss, ignored Leon’s invitation to join them, and shot off to pick up a bottle of water, bumping into Miss Dottle on the stairs.
Dottle wasn’t actually a member of St Mary’s. She and her boss, the idiot Halcombe, were from Thirsk University, and had been foisted on us last year. That had been my fault – we did something really bad, but no one talks about it so neither will I. Anyway, he’d tried to sabotage an assignment and Dr Foster had diagnosed him with leprosy – as you do – which had got rid of him nicely, leaving us with the much more likeable Miss Dottle.
‘Sorry,’ I said, as she bounced off the banisters.
‘That’s quite all right.’ She peered at me.