‘When I give you the instruction,’ Elspeth continued, ‘you begin.’
Jim reached Elspeth. Their heads drew close in whispered conference. Then both of them turned to look at the candidates.
Or to look at Odette. Their eyes were trained squarely on her – she was sure of it.
Elspeth straightened.
‘I’m afraid,’ she announced, ‘there will be a short delay to the start of the exam while one of you is removed.’
Odette’s legs shook. Robert had called the Conclave. She was sure of it.
She smoothed her tweed skirt as Jim walked back down the aisle. He was headed straight for her.
The man halted at the desk in front.
‘Ms Morris. The technician has brought to my attention that you didn’t wait for the time machine to decontaminate before you exited. You’re now a threat to public health. You must leave with me at once.’
His face was scarlet. Tartan burst into tears.
Odette felt nothing but relief that her secret was still intact. If Tartan had been foolish enough to forget the rules, that was her failing.
Jim marched Tartan from the hall as she sobbed.
‘You may now start,’ Elspeth announced.
Odette opened her exam paper. There was the question in black and white: How can we use time travel to prevent crime?
Odette chewed her lip, considering how to respond. She jotted down an opening paragraph: Detectives can interact with the past. But the outcome of their actions will always be consistent with events in their original timeline. The primary purpose of time travel must be to collect evidence, rather than prevent the offence. Justice can then be appropriately administered with all the information to hand.
She detailed her own evidence, including the plaque and Grace Taylor’s response to her questions. Lastly she noted that she had switched on the security camera, which would have captured the vandalism, should the video footage be required at trial.
Odette had failed to stop the crime, and that made her fear for her prospects. But she had done her best and answered honestly. She had to hope this was enough to get her the job.
31
APRIL 1994
Julie
Veronica Collins might have been the first person Margaret threatened with expulsion, but she wasn’t the last. Angharad’s daughter, Julie Parris, joined the Conclave in 1993 as an environmental conservationist. When plants became extinct, it was her role to retrieve samples from the past in the interests of preservation. She had been born to time travellers, and might have taken to Conclave life as her dynastic birthright. But she didn’t. From her first field trip she had felt frightened.
Seasoned time travellers can spend more of their lives in the past or future than their purported ‘home’ timeline. Julie had grown up observing this rootlessness in her parents. Before joining the Conclave herself, she had thought that she was familiar with all of the job’s joys and challenges, and was ready to take them on. She had underestimated how upsetting she would find her own detachment from time. As soon as she stepped from a time machine, at the age of twenty-one, she felt like a ghost – what other name could be applied to a woman who walked among people born centuries after herself? To them, she should be dead. The feeling of dislocation outlasted her return to 1993.
The way that Julie expressed her fear was through food. She wouldn’t try delicacies that were new to her, and she rejected her hosts’ attempts to make her welcome with meals. Soon she rejected familiar meals, too, associating them with an old life that she was permanently severed from. Her body acquired hollows and sharp points. It was gratifying to watch her belly turn concave. The more weight she lost, the closer her physical form matched her inner self: she would be as thin and pared down as the air. Ghosts had no flesh.
Eventually, the circumstances in which she would eat anything at all narrowed to one very specific point in time. If she wished to eat, she would travel to the day of her birth in 1973, and make her way to the local park for 11.52 in the morning. She would only eat at this moment of her birth; and each time she travelled there, her other ‘selves’ were simultaneously in place. To have this moment marked out for meals reassured her, and gave her the sense of control that she otherwise felt was lacking in her life. All her silver selves in the park were close to her in age, so she knew that something would eventually interrupt the ritual she had developed, and take that control away. Whenever she returned to the park, she also saw a future version of her mother, with a stooped back and loose grey hair, watching from a nearby slope. This must have been an attempt on Angharad’s part – still yet to happen – to gain insight into her daughter’s distress.
*
For months, Julie concealed her shrinking body from those who loved her with artful clothing. But her face grew gaunt and furred with lanugo. Dr Joyce recognised the significance of this, and sent Julie to Margaret’s office.
Margaret was now fifty-six. She had been secure in her power for a long time, and paid decreasing attention to social niceties. As testimony to her growing eccentricity, a rabbit – one of Patrick’s descendants – watched them from the side of the room. He sat in the middle of the bookshelf, his nose twitching.
‘Julie had the highest aptitude scores of her cohort,’ Siobhan was saying. ‘Nothing has happened to change that. At no point has her illness stopped her carrying out her duties.’
‘But what might she cost the Conclave?’ Margaret’s voice was icy. ‘That must be weighed against her contribution. Do you deny that every trashy paperback, every second-rate film, every cheap tabloid that dares to mention my work must reference Barbara Hereford’s lunacy in the same breath? I will not pander to their view of us by indulging mental deficiency.’
Thus far Julie had been silent. Margaret’s rabbit leapt from the bookcase and ran to Julie’s feet. She picked him up. He settled in her lap.
The sight enraged Margaret.
‘Parris! Have you nothing to say for yourself? Your weakness disgusts me. Are you so incapable of defending yourself that you must hide behind this doctor’s skirts?’ Margaret walked to where Julie sat with surprising speed and lightness. She lifted the rabbit from Julie’s lap. ‘Give me one reason why I should treat you with anything but contempt. Fussing over a lab rabbit as if it were a pet – you have the attitudes of a child.’
‘Sometimes I think I am a child.’ Julie spoke mildly, almost to herself. ‘Or an animal – like a rabbit. Don’t you ever wonder what it’s like for the lab animals?’
Margaret stared, her expression incredulous.
‘Julie,’ said Siobhan, ‘I don’t think that question helps.’
‘The lab animals in the time machines. The first ones.’ Julie turned her head towards her psychologist. ‘Rabbits have body clocks, you know. They must be sent askew by time travelling. Out of joint, like me. I just want routine and to forage and dig and sleep. Normal life, you know.’
‘So take your normal life and go.’ Margaret exuded contempt. ‘But do not breathe a word of the reasons for your failure.’
‘I can’t go,’ Julie said, matter-of-factly. ‘My entire family are time travellers. It would break my mother’s heart if I left.’
‘Your mother would understand,’ Siobhan said. ‘Please, Julie. You’ll die without intervention.’
‘Get out!’ Margaret barked at Dr Joyce. ‘The girl’s made her decision. If she’s going to stay, she’ll be following the rules I set. Your contribution is no longer needed.’
32
AUGUST 2017
Ruby and Barbara
The bar Grace took Ruby to favoured Victoriana: the wallpaper was flocked, and a piano with candleholders and covered legs stood in the corner. A small bay window let in very little light. Grace bought two tulip glasses of genever, which Ruby hadn’t tried before. They sat in a booth and Ruby sipped her drink.