‘What are you doing here?’ Ruby asked.
Grace looked at her as if she were mad. ‘I’ve come for Christmas. Like we arranged. You didn’t forget?’
‘I assumed it was off. Because of what happened in Liberty’s.’
‘Oh. That? Really? I suppose that’s recent to you. Do you want me to leave?’
‘No, actually.’
Inside, Grace was nearly as aghast at Ruby’s Christmas preparations as Dinah.
‘Not even a tree, Ruby! We must go out and buy one at once.’
‘There won’t be any left by now. I suppose everything does look drab,’ said Ruby, and she promptly burst into tears.
‘Dear heart!’ Grace said. ‘You needn’t take on. I misspoke. It will be fun for the two of us to dress up the flat – much more fun than you doing it alone. And apart from the decorations everything’s dandy. It smells divine in here – like time machines!’
‘That’s Bee’s Candybox. It’s still going. God knows how she got so much juice from one briquette.’ Ruby sniffed. ‘I’m not really upset about Christmas decorations.’
‘Then why are you crying, lovely?’
‘I killed Margaret Norton.’
‘Is that all? I thought you might be sad from missing me.’
‘It’s not funny, Grace.’
‘I know.’
‘What do I do?’
‘Do? There’s nothing to do. Margaret invented a game that she knew could be fatal. What difference does it make? Every time I travel back in time she’ll be still at work and on my back. I won’t mourn her.’
‘But I should repent—’
‘There is no repenting. You just have live with yourself. And to live with me, too, when I’m in town.’
Ruby cried harder.
‘What now?’ Grace exclaimed.
‘I thought I’d scared you away. I was so stupid. There’s this woman I know. Her name’s Ginger. And straight after we fought I—’
‘Don’t.’ Grace put her finger to Ruby’s lips. ‘You need to keep some secrets. It will be better for us, if you know some things that I don’t. Now. Do you have a saw?’
‘In the toolkit, above the washing machine. Why?’
‘There’s a fir tree in the street that I could fit through the door. It’ll look charming with some fairy lights.’
*
They woke, on Christmas morning, to a low beeping sound.
‘Surely you didn’t set an alarm?’ Grace said.
‘I think that’s the Candybox,’ Ruby mumbled. She pulled the pillow over her head.
‘I’m going to investigate.’ Grace tugged the pillow from Ruby’s fingers. ‘Who knows what’s arrived from the past?’
‘It could be dangerous,’ Ruby said, suddenly alert. ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘Oh-ho, now you’re interested. Bags I if it’s anything good.’
The Candybox was humming in the living room. Ruby and Grace approached hand in hand.
‘I can’t look,’ Ruby said.
Grace craned her neck over the hole in the Candybox.
‘It’s a ring,’ she said.
Lucille’s ring. Ruby had dispatched it, months ago. And now it was here.
Grace retrieved it. The setting had contorted en route. Before it had been a conventional, if pretty, solitaire; now the stone sat in a curling, organic web of gold. The circumference had shrunk and the numbers engraved inside had gone. In their place were the words A Ring of a Very Strange Shape.
‘I’m glad I staked first dibs.’ Grace tried it on the middle finger of her right hand. ‘Dash it. Too small.’
Ruby took it, and slid it onto Grace’s left ring finger easily.
‘It’s an engagement ring,’ Ruby said.
‘Look at that. So it is.’ Grace admired the diamond. ‘It won’t be an easy marriage. I might as well be on an oil rig, for all you’ll see me.’
‘That means we won’t take each other for granted.’
‘We’ll have to spend so much time apart. For most of your life I’ll be officially dead.’
‘You’re the most alive person I know. Oh! The ring should have our dates in it.’
‘I like these words more.’ Grace kissed Ruby. ‘Not all time travel customs are good ones.’
59
OCTOBER 2018
Odette
As Ruby’s crime involved time travel technology, she was to be tried by the Conclave rather than an English court. The accused was allowed legal representation – in this case, Fay Hayes. The Fay who turned up in Odette’s office was relatively young, possibly because the case appeared to be straightforward and manageable for a less experienced lawyer. Odette assumed that their disagreement over the Angel of Death ritual was still fresh in Fay’s memory, as her tone was slightly clipped.
‘I’m heading up to the court now. Have you attended any other trials yet?’ Fay asked.
Odette shook her head.
‘Once you enter the courtroom you can’t leave till the end of the trial. I want to take Ruby up there now so she has some time to adjust to the room and I can walk her through the process. At the moment it’s empty and we will need privacy to discuss the case.’
‘Good luck. We attempted to question her on arrival and she didn’t respond. She wouldn’t stop crying.’
‘Yes – because you’re not on her side. I am.’
But Odette’s loyalties were not clear-cut. Ruby had helped Odette cope with a trauma. A trauma that was ultimately the fault of Margaret Norton. While Odette thought Ruby should account for her actions, Margaret was almost certainly the bigger villain and everyone at the Conclave was complicit. Perhaps – if she could communicate that to Ruby – Odette might still get the answers she desperately needed.
‘Take a message from me.’ Odette thought back to their therapy sessions, and their careful reconstruction of her memories into a narrative she could live with. ‘Tell her – the story almost makes sense to me now. But I haven’t decided what the ending is.’
Fay departed. Ten minutes later, Odette received a telephone call from the courtroom.
‘Dr Rebello says she’d like you to be here while we prepare,’ Fay said. ‘Just you, mind, not anybody else on the case. I counselled her that it was not in her interests for you to attend, but she was quite clear in her instructions.’
‘I’ll be there right away,’ Odette said.
*
The Conclave courtroom was in the legal department. It resembled a theatre, with a proscenium arch dividing a raised platform from the gallery. On the platform was a great stone table, behind which was the room’s sole window, a large pane of modernist stained glass. At the front of the platform was a stone bench, where Ruby and Fay were seated.
Odette took a seat in the dim gallery, so as not to disturb them unduly.
‘As you’re not a Conclave employee,’ Fay was telling Ruby, ‘I want to spend some time explaining the way we dispense justice. Fate will decide whether you’re guilty or not in a trial of ordeal. Do you know what this phrase means?’
‘Isn’t that like ducking stools?’ Ruby asked weakly.
‘A similar kind of thing, yes.’
‘What ordeal will they put me through?’
‘The judge will receive a genie from her silver self, normally in the form of a scroll, which describes how you will be tested. Do you know what genies and silver selves are?’
‘Yes. Won’t anyone present any evidence?’
‘No. If you fail the trial of ordeal, the judge will need to pass a sentence. That’s when I come in. I need to present any mitigating factors you can give me. I know you pulled the trigger, but did you mean to murder Margaret Norton? Did you take part in the game freely?’
‘N-no one forced me,’ Ruby stuttered. ‘I don’t know whether I wanted to kill Margaret, not that exactly. I just wanted her to suffer.’
‘Why?’
‘She was responsible for the death of my grandmother, Barbara Hereford.’
Odette gasped. That was the link she had missed: Barbara Hereford had died before November, so Odette ruled her out as a suspect, but hadn’t considered that Margaret’s murderer might be motivated by Barbara’s death.