Ruby’s holiday with Bee drew to a close, and against her better instincts, she returned to Dalston. The origami rabbit still worried her. She wanted to know why Grace had sent Bee the inquest details, and the only way to find out was to ask Grace herself. Bee’s earlier attempts at contact had been unsuccessful, which suggested any meeting would be on Grace’s terms. Deciding how to approach her would take care.
First Ruby needed to do her research. She already knew a little about each of the pioneers because they were high-profile figures. Margaret Norton was the most conventionally ambitious. In 1968 she had founded the Time Travel Conclave, an elite quango with responsibility for all time travel missions, and almost immediately had assumed the role of director. Five decades on she showed no signs of retiring. Lucille Waters and Grace Taylor worked at the Conclave too; Lucille managed exchanges of information between different time periods, while Grace continued to be an active researcher. She specialised in the study of acausal matter, whatever that was.
Grace had also taken a surprising detour into conceptual art. Some of her work was on show at Tate Modern. The day after Ruby came back from Cornwall, she decided to visit the gallery and see the installations at close range. When she arrived she hopped on the escalator to the third floor, and wove her way through the tourists and students. The downpour outside had made them a sorry crowd: they all smelt slightly dank. Ruby’s hair was plastered to her forehead and the tip of her nose was pink. By the time she found the right room she felt clammy and wretched. It was crowded in there, too – a guide was leading a special tour for blind visitors, who had permission to touch selected exhibits.
Ruby stood by a man who was running his fingers over an embroidered piece of linen. It looked like a sampler, of the kind that normally commemorates a birth. The name stitched in the cloth was Grace Evangeline Taylor. Chains of flowers, rattles and other baby paraphernalia were sewn round the borders. They looked especially quaint because the date in the centre was decidedly futuristic: 29 April 2027.
‘I can’t tell what I’m feeling,’ the man said, which struck Ruby as an unexpectedly intimate comment. He was, however, speaking literally. ‘I can feel the cloth, and I can see a blue shape, but I’m buggered if I know what it’s a picture of.’
‘That bit’s a flower,’ said his guide.
‘A forget-me-not,’ Ruby added.
‘Ah,’ the blind man said. ‘Thanks.’
The guide explained that the sampler dated back to the thirties. Grace had modified it. Originally it displayed her birth date – 10 October 1937 – but she’d unpicked those stitches and reused the strands of silk to sew the date of her death. Ruby suppressed a nervous laugh. It seemed so incongruous to foretell one’s passing at ninety with the twee symbols of babyhood. Perhaps Grace liked to indulge in a little gallows humour.
Ruby moved on to the second artwork, which looked more traditional. It comprised a self-portrait in oils. Grace was shown in profile, reading a book. Her hair was white. Half-moon glasses sat on her nose. According to the blurb on the wall, the novelty of the piece lay in its construction rather than its style. The painting had been created in reverse order. Grace had travelled twenty-four hours into the future, where a near-complete painting awaited her final touches. She then travelled an hour closer to the present, twenty-three hours in the future, to undertake the preceding brush strokes. She kept travelling back towards the present, until finally the canvas was blank, and she had to paint the first line. She made this first line with a fresh, directly experienced memory of how the final painting would look. At no point in the process did she feel the image was of her choosing; she was always responding to what was already on the canvas, or what she had seen in the future.
The final installation was Ruby’s favourite of the three. Grace had placed a chartreuse pencil upon a velvet cushion. She had travelled fifty years into the future and collected the pencil, which she brought back to the present day to lie beside its younger twin. They were the same pencil, and yet occupied different spaces. Ruby forgot, for a moment, the dampness of her jeans against her calves, and the tickling cough that was forming in her throat. Here was an astonishing object: proof, that you could reach out and touch, of the ability to move through time.
Tentatively, Ruby ran her fingers over the exhibit. The original pencil was smooth and the future version had gained a patina. She glanced, guiltily, around the room to see if anyone had noticed her touch the exhibit. Maybe it didn’t matter; she could be one of the blind visitors, after all.
Ruby bypassed the other collections, intending to go home. When she reached the ground floor she saw the rain had started again. Another soaking didn’t appeal. Her umbrella was hanging on the hat stand in her tiny Dalston flat because she’d been foolish enough to expect sunshine. But the gift shop probably stocked umbrellas – and if not, the storm might subside while Ruby browsed.
She flicked through a coffee table book or two, and dawdled towards some souvenirs at the back of the shop. A few bits and pieces were related to time travel, including a slim tome of time travellers’ slang by someone called Sushila Pardesi. Miniature copies of Grace’s pencil installation were also on sale. They quite charmed Ruby.
She took the phrase book and miniature pencils to the till. The cashier was scanning them when Ruby’s eyes settled on a woman by the entrance. Ruby stared. It was Grace herself, examining a rack of scarves. She wasn’t the white-haired septuagenarian of her oil painting. This Grace looked only a little older than Ruby; late thirties, at a guess. She, too, had been caught in the rain. The water made her hair shine blackly like an otter’s. She wore a cornflower blue trenchcoat and a black polo neck. Her mouth was as bright as a split cherry.
She picked up one of the silk scarves, folded it, and slipped it into her coat pocket. Ruby felt Grace was putting on a show – and sure enough, Grace looked at Ruby, grinned, and raised a finger to her lips. The burnished metal of a time traveller’s watch was fastened round her wrist.
She sauntered through the exit.
‘Are you paying by card?’ the assistant prompted.
Ruby nodded dumbly.
As soon as the transaction was through she ran out into the drizzle. She pushed through the crowds at the riverside, searching vainly for a flash of blue, fearful that Grace was long gone.
‘Ruby!’ a woman shouted. ‘Ruby!’
The voice came from above. Ruby lifted her head to the skyline. Grace was standing on the footbridge over the Thames. And she knew Ruby’s name. Should Ruby have been surprised? Time travellers are privy to all kinds of information we’re yet to provide.
‘Send my love to Barbara!’ Grace called.
Ruby made her way to the bridge steps. But by the time she reached the top Grace had slipped back into the crowds. How unnerving that she knew who Ruby was.
Grace had left the stolen scarf behind – it was knotted round one of the railings, and the tapered ends were snapping like pennants in the wind. Did Grace remember that Bee liked scarves? Ruby untied it. The silk, which had turned translucent with moisture, was printed with a reproduction of Grace’s sampler. Something about it made Ruby uneasy.
She looked at that date again: 2027.
Oh God. She’d been so slow.
If Grace knew she was going to die in 2027 – if she was telling the truth about that – then they wouldn’t hold an inquest into her death in 2018. Ruby felt sick. If Grace’s own death didn’t drive her interest in the case, Granny Bee must be the one who was in danger.
6
FEBRUARY 2018
Odette
Odette was required at the inquest, to give witness testimony. She allowed so much time for her journey she was half an hour early. An arts market lined the street outside the coroner’s court and she occupied herself by looking at paintings and pots. She stopped at a second-hand bookstall. The bookseller was completing a crossword.
‘Back again?’ he said to Odette. His false teeth were a little too large.