It was important to see him in person. She didn’t trust the receptionist to pass on the message he needed to hear. But she was running out of time.
She was heading back downstairs, contemplating the best way to get his home address, when she caught sight of him through the centre of the stairwell. He was on the ground floor, talking to a student.
‘Mr Callaghan!’ she called. He didn’t hear her. He was turning to go.
She ran the rest of the way, just in time to see him leave by the main entrance. She followed him outside. He was opening his car door.
‘Zach!’
He looked up, and waved in acknowledgement. She ran across the car park to meet him. All she wanted to do was lie down. She had to make do with leaning against the bonnet.
‘Are you all right?’ He touched her shoulder in concern.
‘Sorry. Let me catch my breath.’ She pulled at the collar of her shirt. She must look sweaty from her trek through London grime. That didn’t matter, she thought, what mattered was what Elspeth had found in the records.
‘Here…’ He took a bottle of water from his car. She drank it gratefully.
‘I have something to tell you,’ she said. ‘I know you said you’d given up on Conclave stories. This might tempt you back. I infiltrated the Conclave. And I got this.’
The transcripts and fingerprint report were in her bag. She handed them to him.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘Enough material for several reports. I’ll help in any way I can.’
He read the first few paragraphs of transcript, then skipped ahead, skimming the later pages. ‘This is incredible, Odette.’
‘I know!’
‘But I can’t write this story.’ He held out the transcript. ‘I told you why before.’
‘You did,’ she said. ‘I haven’t forgotten. When I was in the Conclave I could check your future – and your family’s futures. You will cover this story. You need to, to call the Conclave to account. There won’t be any retaliation. I can say that for certain.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’ He looked at the transcript again. ‘You’ve been brave, Odette.’
It felt so good to give away the case notes. Odette felt physically lighter. For nearly a year she’d thought of nothing but the body in the museum. Now, she might finally be ready to leave it behind.
‘Have you thought of becoming a journalist?’ Zach asked her.
‘It’s not the most stable career path,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I have a future in it.’
He laughed. She saw he was lighter too, and she saw, as well, what her silver selves might like about him. Elspeth had unearthed some surprises in his documentation. The most notable was his marriage certificate, dated six years hence. Odette didn’t really know Zach. She didn’t know yet why anyone would want to marry him. But she was curious. He was, she realised, a new mystery to solve.
‘If I were you I’d take a holiday,’ he said. ‘Better to be away from everything when the story breaks. You’ve earned it, anyway.’
‘That’s a good idea.’
They smiled at each other, neither speaking nor moving away. Until Odette remembered Ruby’s trial and swore.
She darted from the car towards the road. If she hurried she could still make it back in time.
‘Where are you going?’ Zach called.
She ran backwards as she shouted her reply.
‘My therapist’s being tried for murder, and I have to be fired by the Conclave!’
‘What?’
‘I have to be somewhere! I’ll call you!’
She waved, and he waved back.
57
JANUARY 2018
Margaret
Margaret didn’t expect Julie’s gunshot wound to cause trouble. November ended, and so did December, without anyone challenging Margaret’s version of events. So she rested easy. She didn’t realise those two months were being used to plot against her. Not until the New Year.
She was reviewing the year ahead with her senior staff. When the meeting came to a close, all of her subordinates stood to leave – except for Angharad. And Margaret felt a flicker of premonition. Angharad wouldn’t meet her eye. Margaret waited until the last departing time traveller had closed her office door, and she was alone with Angharad, before saying, ‘Is there something you’d like to discuss with me? Only I’d rather you make a separate appointment—’
‘Julie’s wound’s healing well.’ Angharad sat with her hands clasped at the knee, her fingers white. Normally her movements were fluid – the muscle memory of a ballerina, even at her advanced age – but her pose today was rigid. ‘Now that Julie’s stronger, she intends to take you to court. To the Conclave court. She wants to tell them about Candybox roulette.’
So Julie had squealed, and intended to squeal some more. What a little fool. ‘I see.’
‘We’ve been friends a long time, you and I.’ Angharad’s fingers unlocked. She reached for Margaret’s hand. ‘With each other’s help we can dissuade her.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘If there were a trial, it would come out that you acted on my advice. Julie can never know I was involved. I couldn’t bear it.’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘If you eliminate all the evidence, perhaps I can persuade Julie that she won’t be believed.’
That would be for the best. And then Margaret would take her much delayed retirement. Disappear, in case Julie changed her mind, into some halcyon year of Margaret’s choosing. She thought about the blank death certificate in her drawer: was it blank because she was missing, believed dead? To vanish, Margaret must liquidate her assets. At the first opportunity she would sell her property for achrons. She could covertly exchange them, for local currency, in her destination decade. But not before doing the necessary clean-up.
‘The bullets in the wall,’ Margaret mused. ‘Blood in the basement.’
‘And the Candybox,’ Angharad said. ‘You must go back for the Candybox, too.’
Margaret laughed. ‘You don’t have to worry about that my dear. I destroyed it.’
‘Destroyed?’
‘Smashed it into little pieces.’ As soon as Bee’s granddaughter scored a direct hit. Margaret didn’t want anything flying out of the Candybox at a time she could no longer choose. She’d envisioned buying a new machine, before the next game.
‘What did you do with the parts?’ Angharad asked.
Margaret unlocked the bottom drawer in her desk – the drawer where she kept everything she didn’t want to think about. She took out a jewellery box and placed it in Angharad’s hands. Angharad looked Margaret in the eye, as though asking permission. Margaret nodded. The lid flipped up, revealing the mosaic pieces that had once been the Candybox.
‘Let me take these,’ Angharad said. ‘I can destroy them properly. Obliterate them – in the Conclave lab. Then no one can say they ever existed.’
‘Very well,’ Margaret agreed. ‘And I’ll return to the scene of the crime.’
There was nothing to worry about, Margaret reasoned. Julie was no match for her. Even Julie’s own mother wouldn’t take her side.
58
DECEMBER 2017
Ruby
So Ruby rang the Conclave in the hope of speaking to Grace. She was told no Graces were there at present. In the weeks that followed Ruby continued to see clients and pretend nothing was wrong while quietly being eaten by guilt for firing the bullets that would kill Margaret. When the guilt got too much Ruby went to the nearest police station and confessed. She told them she’d played a shooting game with Margaret Norton and in a matter of weeks Margaret would die because of it. The duty officer brought her tea and arranged a psych consult. They contacted Dinah, as Ruby’s next of kin. After that, Dinah telephoned daily to make sure Ruby was looking after herself. They argued about Ruby’s laundry pile and the mouse infestation behind the skirting boards. On Christmas Eve they also argued about Ruby’s refusal to go to Great-Aunt Jane’s for Christmas dinner, because Ruby was determined to spend the day alone, drinking herself into a stupor while slumped in front of Top of the Pops and Doctor Who. Ruby had just hung up when the doorbell rang.
It was Grace, on the step with a round leather suitcase.