He sat on the sofa and pulled me down beside him.
‘It was hard, Max. Even with all their technical equipment, we just couldn’t get close. Every time we landed, we had to spend hours searching the entire area because there was always the fear that he’d just abandoned Matthew somewhere. We had to be thorough so, of course, it meant we were getting further and further behind with each jump. Nobody actually said it, but there was a real feeling we were never going to get him back. And our power reserves were way down and the pod was beginning to drift. You know, the way they do.’
I nodded. Pods need regular servicing otherwise they begin to drift. A decade in one direction – one hundred miles in another. Four or five jumps are usually about the limit before they need some care and attention. That’s not usually a problem, because after four or five consecutive jumps, the pod is not in half such bad condition as the historians inside, who by this time are generally in need of care and attention themselves. To say nothing of a couple of stiff drinks.
‘Anyway, one day, we had no choice but to stop and recharge the batteries. The pod’s and ours. We made ourselves a decent meal, took the time to shower and shave and, in sheer desperation, we sat down and brainstormed. Nothing was discounted, because we had to think of some other way than just blindly trying to pursue Ronan up and down the timeline and only ever getting further behind. Ellis suggested we return to Time Police HQ and throw the problem at them and no one could come up with anything better, so we did. They have all sorts of resources there – most of which I’m not even allowed to think about, let alone tell you – but it seems they have a few whizz kids whose main purpose is just tinkering with the Time Map, and one of them had a bright idea. I don’t know what she did – she did try to explain it to me but I lost her half way through the second sentence, which was embarrassing. Anyway, the upshot was that they modified the Time Map to show traffic, rather than actual historical events. They eliminated everything except pod movements. It took them a couple of days, and what they were left with was a tangled network of coloured lines. It was then just a case of filtering out all St Mary’s jumps – they’re blue, by the way, and there are a lot of them.’
He paused and chugged back more beer.
‘The next step was to fade out their own traffic – their jumps are purple. That left a mish-mash of tiny jumps; mostly illegal – homemade pods trailing radiation, amateur catastrophes – all that sort of thing. All in varying shades of red and brown. They took all that out and that just left a tangled maze of green stuff. They matched it with the radiation signature I’d given them and said most of it was probably Ronan’s pod. It should have taken weeks, but apparently the whizz kids put their phones away, plugged in their personal soundtracks and got stuck in. I’ve no idea how they were able to disentangle things, but they did. They took a close look at the patterns and…’ He stopped.
I felt myself grow cold. ‘And what?’
‘They superimposed our jumps over the top and confirmed we were slipping further and further behind. We were never going to catch them. Commander Hay held a conference, and they said they’d identified what they were convinced was Ronan’s latest jump. To 19th-century London. They concluded that either Ronan was still there – or…’ He very put his beer down very carefully and spent some time turning it around and around, not looking at me, ‘… or that both of them had remained there for some reason.’
‘Or died,’ I said.
‘Or died there before we could catch up with them. To cut a long story short, it was decided we would take a chance, stop following them, and jump directly to those coordinates. Even though it meant…’
Even though it meant that Matthew would no longer be a baby when they found him.
‘We landed in the East End. Once we were there, it took us three days to track him through the worst slums imaginable. We questioned, we bribed, we threatened. Sometimes we … I … got physical, but we found him in the end.
There’s an alleyway – Grit Lane. With a courtyard at the end. Tall narrow houses, one of which was occupied by Jeremiah Scrope and his wife, the very unlovely Ma Scrope. They lived in the downstairs rooms. I’ve no idea who was above them.’
He stopped talking. I offered him another beer. He took it but set it down unopened.
‘You didn’t find Ronan then. Wasn’t he still there?’
‘We don’t know. And there was no time to look for him. You saw the state Matthew was in. We had to bring him straight back. Max…’ He stopped, unable to go on.
I said, ‘I understand, Leon. You did exactly the right thing,’ and rubbed his arm.
‘As soon as they’ve had a breather, Ellis and his team, and probably Guthrie and Grey are going back to find Ronan.’
I nodded, still rubbing his arm.
‘Max, I’m sorry. Please believe we did everything we could to catch him as soon as possible. We’d chased them day and night. I’d done what I could to keep the pods aligned. I worked non-stop, and every day they were even more jumps ahead of us.
‘Leon, I understand.’
‘It was a calculated gamble. To jump ahead to a place where we knew he’d definitely be. And then, when we got there, he was eight years old.’
My heart sank. ‘Eight? He’s eight years old? I thought he was about five or six. Why is he so small?’
He shook his head. ‘Well, malnutrition, of course. I don’t think he’s had a decent meal in his entire life. And let’s face it, his parents aren’t that tall. The doctor thinks he’s about seven or eight years old.’
I couldn’t believe it, saying stupidly, ‘Matthew is eight?’
‘Probably. There’s another thing, Max…’
‘What?’
He took my hands. ‘That’s not his name any longer.’
I was bewildered. ‘What isn’t his name?’
‘Matthew. He was just a baby when he was taken. If he ever knew that name, he’s long since forgotten it. He’s never known his name was Matthew.’
It was all too much to take in. Just one hammer blow after another.
I said, ‘What’s his name now?’ and my voice wasn’t steady. That bastard Ronan had not only stolen him, but he’d stolen his identity too.
‘He doesn’t have one. As far as I can see, Ronan has been jumping around with him, selling him, returning a year later to steal him back, and then selling him on again. Some of his owners didn’t bother to give him a name. Scrope called him Joseph. He doesn’t respond to it. He doesn’t respond to anything very much.’
I remembered his silent watchfulness. With closed throat I said, ‘Can he talk?’
‘A little. I think he understands more than he shows, but over the years he’s learned it’s safer to keep quiet.’
He fell silent again.
‘Leon, what is it?’
‘There’s something else you should know.’
‘There’s more? What else could there possibly be? Isn’t all this enough?’
‘Yes, you’re right.’ He stood up. ‘Let’s get something to eat. I want to hear what’s been happening here.
I pulled him back down again. ‘Tell me.’
He didn’t look at me. ‘The thing is, Max. He hasn’t been well-treated.’
‘Yes, I can see that. I’m assuming he’s been a climbing boy.’
‘Yes, Ronan sold him to Scrope. For about seven shillings from what I could gather. His wife demanded two guineas to give him back to us however, because he’d been properly indentured and strictly speaking, we were breaking the law by taking him away, but Guthrie presented her with a couple of bottles of gin and a hard look, so she was induced to let him go. Eventually.’