‘Off for a run,’ I said. ‘Need to get back into shape before taking on the 1066 assignments. A couple of times around the lake should do it.’
As always, she looked over my shoulder for Peterson. She’s a quiet girl and, even though she’s Thirsk’s representative here at St Mary’s, people do quite like her. Besides, as Peterson pointed out, we’d sent them Kalinda Black – or that six-foot blonde psychopath, as Leon always refers to her – so they had rather got the worst of the deal. Miss Dottle was actually quite sweet. True, she had an enormous crush on Peterson, blushing like a sunset whenever he appeared over the horizon but, let’s face it, if you’re going to have a crush on anyone, you could do worse than Peterson. A lot worse.
It could be Markham, for instance, who was the next person to get between me and fresh air.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded.
‘Honestly, I get kidnapped just once…’
‘Exactly,’ he said, ‘and I’ve been tasked by Dr B to make sure it doesn’t happen again.’
‘You’ve been what?’
‘Well, actually, he said, “Mr Markham, should anything happen to Dr Maxwell, I will hold you personally responsible and the consequences will be commensurate with my displeasure.”‘
I winced. ‘Ouch.’
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘So, to repeat myself – where are you off to?’
‘A couple of times around the lake,’ I said, patting my midriff. It rippled in a disconcerting manner.
Markham stepped back. ‘The sooner the better I’d say. Got your thingy?’
My thingy – as the Security Section refers to it, because they have to keep things simple otherwise they can’t cope – was the personal attack alarm, hanging around my neck. For further security, they’d increased the number of my tags. In addition to the normal one in my arm, they’d inserted another in my thigh. ‘In case your arm gets chopped off,’ said Helen, comfortingly, and a third under my shoulder blade.
‘In case all your arms and legs get chopped off,’ said Markham.
It’s good to have friends.
Sighing and rolling my eyes, I presented my thingy for inspection, was instructed to wave as I passed the windows, not to overdo things, to remember my water, to try not to fall over my own feet, or get lost.
Since he showed signs of wanting to come with me, I asked him if he really was married, which always shifts him faster than one of Helen’s constipation cures goes through a short historian, and eventually I made it out into the fresh air.
Bloody hell, half the morning gone already.
I wandered over to the lake, stretched out a few non-existent muscles and set off.
I have my own formula. A hundred yard’s jog. Hundred yard’s brisk walk. Hundred yard’s sprint. Hundred yard’s jog again. It covers the ground surprisingly quickly. Although not as quickly as having a pack of enraged villagers coming at you waving pitchforks and torches and shouting about burning the witch. Then watch me really move.
It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Things wobbled a bit, but casting my mind back to pre-pregnancy days, things had always wobbled a bit, so I didn’t take a lot of notice.
The day was lovely, with blue skies, fluffy clouds, and cool enough to keep me comfortable. The swans, always as far away from St Mary’s as they could possibly manage, floated serenely on the lake or stamped around the reed beds muttering to themselves. We all gave each other a wide berth.
I completed one circuit, chugged back some water and, encouraged to find I was still alive, decided to give it another go.
I set off again, anti-clockwise this time, rather enjoying myself and, just as I was at the very furthest point from St Mary’s, just where the reed beds hid me from sight, I came upon Clive Ronan, sitting on a fallen tree trunk, and apparently waiting for me.
Remembering the last occasion on which I’d seen him, the time when he’d kidnapped me and left me to give birth alone and lost in time, I screeched to a halt and began to grope for my thingy. Sadly, it was under my T-shirt to stop it bumping around so was not, therefore, immediately accessible.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I mean you no harm. I’m not armed. Look.’
His gun was on the ground some feet away. ‘Pick it up if it makes you feel safer.’
I did pick it up. As I’d suspected, it was empty but I could always use it to club him to death.
He stood up very slowly. ‘I’m not armed,’ he said again, arms in the air, rotating slowly. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans and I could see he had no gun.
‘No ankle holster,’ he said pulling up his jeans. ‘And no knives either. No hostile intentions of any kind.’ He sat back down again. ‘I can understand that after our last encounter you might have a few … issues … with me, but since you apparently made it back safe and sound, I hope you’ll be able to set those aside for a few minutes and talk. How is the young lad by the way? Does he look like his dad?’
I ignored the questions. He wasn’t going to get any information out of me.
He gestured to another log. ‘Please sit down.’
I ignored that too.
He seated himself again slowly and carefully. ‘I have something to say to you and…’
I finally located my thingy and pulled it out. Carefully, because I’d once set it off accidentally and birds had erupted from the trees, glass had shattered, every dog for miles around had begun to howl, and Dr Bairstow had blamed me for stopping his clock. You get the picture. It’s loud.
I’ve been dealing with Ronan for years now. He’s a killer without conscience. He’s ruthless. A complete bastard. He couldn’t possibly have anything to say to me. Activating my alarm would have the entire Security Section here in moments. And Leon, probably, dripping wet, baby in one hand, Glock 9mm in the other. And the History Department, of course, all wanting to see what was happening, and keen to make a bad situation worse.
‘I want to stop.’
There was a silence, while my brain struggled with what was actually quite a simple sentence.
‘What?’
‘I want to stop.’
I stared at him.
He sighed and leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. ‘I want to stop running. I want … I don’t want to…’
He stopped talking and stared at his feet.
I wasn’t altogether surprised. I think I’ve said before that living outside one’s own time is not easy. Today’s society is much more fragmented than in the past – people are no longer linked in the traditional groupings of family, tribe, guild, or village, but even today, without a NI number, a credit rating, or an ID card, there’s little chance of being accepted into society. Life on the outside is never easy. Everyone belongs somewhere. They may not like their life but it fits them exactly. It’s where they’re meant to be. Leave it for any length of time and History reacts by making things as difficult as it knows how.
Ronan had been running for years, damaging himself and everyone around him. His trail was littered with corpses and the wreckage of other people’s lives. I could understand that he would want to stop running. Especially now that the Time Police were on his case. The question was – would he be allowed to? Should he be allowed to?
I thought of Mary Schiller. Killed and left in a box for four hundred years. And Jamie Cameron. Killed to make a point. And Big Dave Murdoch who died saving me. I thought of what Ronan had done to Bashford and Grey. And to me.
I said nothing because silence is the best way to get people to talk.
Not looking at me, he said, ‘I want to stop running all the time. I’ve found somewhere … I want to settle down with … I want to stop all this. Sooner or later, Max, one or both of us is going to be dead. And that doesn’t have to happen. I now know the … the value of what you have, and I want it too. So I’m saying – you back off – I back off – and we both of us get on with the rest of our lives.’
I found a voice. ‘That’s it? That’s what you want? A decade and more of killing everyone in your path and now you just want to close the door and walk away?’
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘A new beginning.’