The ambulance came to relieve him. There was terrible difficulty getting Grace out of the cellar. The nineteenth-century lift hadn’t been built to accommodate stretchers; nor had the narrow, spiralling stairway. Ruby followed the paramedics, maintaining a short distance so she didn’t get in their way. They reached the lobby, and Ruby was able to draw level with them as they carried her through the main entrance.
Grace remained unconscious, yet Ruby felt compelled to offer some soothing words. Bee would have wanted Ruby to be kind; she loved Grace.
Ruby took Grace’s hand.
‘I hope you feel better soon,’ Ruby said, ‘and that we can rearrange our conversation when you’re back on your feet.’
These were polite parting words, for a woman she didn’t know. Later, when she knew more, Ruby would wish she’d been warmer.
27
SEPTEMBER 2018
Odette
Once Odette’s medical was completed, she was sent back to the waiting room with the others. After a short interval, Jim returned with a clipboard.
‘Ms Sophola, Ms Morris and Mr Jensen – you are all cleared to time travel. Mr Roberts, might I have a word?’
Mr Roberts stood, rubbing the back of his head nervously, and stepped into the corridor with Jim.
They closed the door but their voices remained audible.
‘I’m afraid, Mr Roberts, that your blood test showed levels of amitriptyline. Your medical notes didn’t mention a prescription for this drug.’
‘Is it a problem? I take it for back pain.’
‘It’s a tricyclic antidepressant, Mr Roberts. We have to exclude anyone on psychiatric medication. Our recruitment information is quite clear on this point.’
‘But I don’t take it for psychiatric reasons. I take it for back pain. The dosage is tiny.’
‘Candidates sometimes lie about their reasons for taking a particular medication, because they don’t want us to know their mental health diagnosis. We’re therefore vigilant about excluding anyone on antidepressants, whatever they claim to take it for. It’s really for your safety, you know.’
‘So that’s it? I’m out before I begin?’
‘Thank you for coming today. We wish you the very best in your job search.’
Odette snorted with laughter – not from amusement, but disbelief. She thought again of Robert’s threat. If the Conclave found out she’d been traumatised, it was clear they wouldn’t give her a job.
‘Might not be very nice, but it’s all to our benefit,’ said the woman in tartan. ‘Now there’s one less competition.’
*
At eleven thirty an administrator led the applicants down several corridors, into a windowless gallery. Oil portraits hung from green baize walls. One of them was concealed with a dustsheet. Fifteen minutes passed in uneasy silence. Odette noticed a security camera above the door. They were on tape. Maybe the test had already begun.
The doors swung open to reveal a pale, green-eyed woman in her late thirties. Odette recognised her with a jolt. This was the woman who had come to Mahé for her wedding. Odette wondered if she should mention having met before, and decided against. It would be awkward if the woman didn’t remember. After all, Odette had only been a little girl.
‘My name is Professor Elspeth Niven,’ the time traveller announced. ‘I’m the head of Criminal Investigation for the Conclave. You must be eager to start, so I won’t beat about the bush. Your task today is to answer the question: how can time travel help us to prevent a crime?’
She walked past them, and pulled the dustsheet away from the hidden painting. It was a portrait, Odette observed, of a bullish man in an academic gown. The other paintings had small plaques with the sitters’ names, but this man’s identity seemed to have been removed, leaving a small pale oblong on the wall.
A gold knife had been plunged into the canvas, and jutted from the man’s heart.
‘The Conclave have owned this painting for decades. It was worth about sixteen thousand achrons,’ Professor Niven said. ‘But no longer. Between eleven and eleven thirty this morning, somebody stabbed the painting. If you were investigators, how could you use time travel to prevent this terrible vandalism?’
The square-jawed man spoke. ‘We could travel back to eleven this morning, and alter the course of events.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ demurred the woman in tartan. ‘Wouldn’t we cause a paradox?’
‘Or end up with whole new lives,’ Square Jaw mused. ‘Like Marty McFly.’
‘Let’s find out, shall we?’ Professor Niven said. ‘In the next room are many dozens of time machines. One of them is at your disposal this morning. You may take one trip, into the past, to precisely eleven this morning. I will give you a set of tools, which you may use as you see fit.’
From a leather bag, Elspeth took three screwdrivers, and three catapults. Screwdrivers and catapults had very specific functions. Why those tools, and no other? Were they specially chosen because Professor Niven knew in advance what the hopefuls would need? The questions were making Odette’s head spin.
Professor Niven hadn’t finished. ‘There’s the knife too, of course. Does anyone want that?’
The candidates exchanged glances; they’d have to be fools to turn down any aid.
‘Which of you should have the knife?’ Professor Niven asked. ‘Let’s leave it to fate.’
Elspeth gripped the knife and pulled it from the canvas. She flipped the knife into the air with the ease of a circus performer. It landed, point down, at Odette’s feet. Odette picked it up. The handle was engraved: I HAVE A SHORT LIFE AND A SINGLE PURPOSE. She slipped the knife into her jacket pocket.
‘Why should she get an advantage?’ the tartan woman murmured. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘Fate isn’t fair,’ Professor Niven said. ‘When you return, you will sit a timed essay where you will write your reflections and conclusions. Remember: the question you need to answer is, how can we use time travel to prevent crime?’
*
In the neighbouring hall, a technician explained he would set the machine for them.
‘I think we should talk about our plans,’ Odette said to the other applicants. ‘Elspeth Niven didn’t say we had to work alone. Why don’t we consult each other first?’
‘On what?’ asked Tartan.
‘We need to be strategic. The aim is to protect the picture, right? There’s no point us undermining each other’s efforts.’
‘I was thinking I’d unscrew the picture from the wall before the vandal arrives,’ said Square Jaw. ‘If we arrive at eleven, we’ll have enough time to remove the painting, and bring it back to the present, undamaged.’
‘Good idea,’ Odette said. ‘Before we come back we could use the catapults to smash the chandelier bulbs. Can’t destroy any of the other pictures if it’s too dark to see.’
‘I’ll be good at that,’ said Tartan. ‘My aim’s straight as a die. I took the county cup for archery three years running.’
Odette hesitated. What was left? ‘I suppose I could intercept the vandal – or distract them – do something to stop them getting to the gallery at all.’
Tartan rubbed her forehead. ‘I still don’t understand how we won’t cause a paradox. If we succeed in stopping the vandal, our old selves will never hear that they’re supposed to stop them.’
‘I don’t understand either,’ Odette said. ‘But Elspeth told us to try preventing the crime. So let’s… try.’
With their plan agreed, they entered the time machine. Anxiety about the test curbed Odette’s wonder at time travel, and something was bothering her about the task. The most interesting questions, to Odette’s mind, were the vandal’s motives. Why was this painting singled out for vandalism, rather than any other in the gallery? Surely the answer should shape how Odette used her time in the past? How could they prevent a crime before knowing the reasons for it?
In the darkness the engines shrilled, and Odette breathed a strange, pungent mix of scents that reminded her of photocopiers, and burning rubber. The time machine stopped. They waited until the decontamination phase was complete, then the trio walked into a room near-identical to the one they had left behind. Only the great clock on the wall confirmed they had moved back in time.
They returned to the gallery, where the painting was intact again. The top corners were screwed to the wall.