‘I reached an open verdict.’ He paused. ‘I’m glad I have this opportunity to talk with you. I wanted to recommend that you seek some emotional support, if you haven’t done so already.’
Odette remembered the psychologist who had offered victim support. Maybe she had been rash to refuse her help. Since then, the dead woman had been much in Odette’s thoughts. So much that she sometimes felt, as she had during testimony, that she had never left the crime scene at all. Was a sympathetic ear what she needed?
She didn’t think so. Surely she was struggling to move on because the death made no sense. No one had offered a convincing explanation for how the woman died, and violent acts without explanation were terrifying. If Odette worked out what had occurred in the basement, surely she would feel able to let it go?
‘I don’t need help,’ she insisted. ‘I need to know what happened. Then I can draw a line under it.’
‘But, Miss Sophola, we can’t establish what happened. You must accept that. Please, take my advice. Finding the deceased could have a lasting emotional impact on you. Don’t try to manage it on your own.’
He patted her kindly on the arm and bid her goodbye, leaving her to contemplate what he’d said. That evening she would be catching the train back to Cambridge. Her course books would await her, with her revision notes, and the clear, tangible arguments she was preparing for her exams – a set of discrete, manageable mysteries, to distract her from the bigger mystery threatening to overwhelm her.
7
MAY 1969
Lucille
By the spring of 1969, the new Conclave headquarters – an assemblage of marble buildings close to St Paul’s Cathedral – were complete. The small team of pioneers grew into an elite profession for a few hundred people. And as soon as the new machines were operational, time travellers arrived from the future, too.
Broadly speaking, there were three types of time traveller. The first group were experimental physicists. Of the pioneers, Grace fell into this category. They studied the effect of time travel on physical matter, the creation of causal loops, and the conditions that could prevent time travel. The time machines wouldn’t transport anyone further than three hundred years into the future, and the experimental physicists tried to understand why. It was almost as if the supporting infrastructure disappeared in 2267.
The second group of time travellers used the machines as a means to an end. This group included the spies and military personnel who gathered intelligence from different time periods to inform strategic decisions. There were salesmen, too, open to the new commercial opportunities time travel might bring. The sales team identified products which could be traded between eras, primarily for luxury markets, to secure a revenue stream for the Conclave. And there were also scholars – anthropologists, conservationists and geographers, to name but a few, who studied new eras as they might study an unfamiliar land.
The third and final group of time travellers provided internal services. Administrators and maintenance staff kept the Conclave running. Medics and psychologists monitored the health of everyone who used the time machines. A specialist legal department was established; despite its geographical location in London, the Conclave’s justice arrangements were quite separate from the English judicial system. This was partly necessary because time travellers can move easily between different eras of English legislation. Similarly, if a Conclave employee committed a crime with the help of time travel, the English police force lacked the means to pursue them. As a result, the Conclave had its own criminal investigative team.
Lucille belonged to the internal services division. Her role was Head of Knowledge, and she oversaw the communication and exchange of information between different time periods. It filled her with delight to see the Conclave expand and thrive. But she grew regretful, too, that among the new faces there was no place for Barbara. Long after conceding that they should leave Barbara alone, Lucille continued to hope there was a use for her skills. Accordingly, once everyone had settled in the new headquarters, she devised a proposal, which she brought to Margaret during a routine progress meeting.
‘The engineers have had some success receiving radio transmissions through wormholes,’ Lucille said. ‘It won’t be long until we can set up a Conclave-wide radio communications system. Like the time machines, they won’t be able to contact periods earlier than their own invention. But we’ll be able to chat to people in the year 2260 without leaving the comfort of our armchair.’
‘Go on,’ Margaret urged.
‘We’re finalising a very simple design – the receivers will resemble telephones. The user will speak to an operator who tunes you in to the correct year. When we can call each other across the decades, we’ll drastically cut down on the number of trips we need to take.’
‘Excellent news,’ Margaret said. ‘Radio communication will improve efficiency no end. But I’d query whether it should be Conclave-wide. That sounds rather… uncontrolled. Usage should be a privilege, held by the most senior employees, and sparingly extended to their subordinates. Then we can keep a tighter rein on the flow of information.’
‘If that’s what you want. We’ll need to hire operators. They won’t need to time travel, but they will need to be proficient in time travel technology – and ideally they should be up to speed in superluminal research. I think we should offer one of the roles to Barbara.’
Margaret closed her eyes. ‘We agreed not to contact Barbara. Didn’t we all feel that it would be cruel?’
‘Yes – when she was in no position to work with us. But if we were offering her a way back – an interesting, novel opportunity that would make good use of her skills – that wouldn’t be cruel at all. Don’t you see? Working with radios needn’t aggravate her symptoms at all. Her problem’s with circadian rhythm, and such – isn’t that what Angharad said?’
Shifting in her seat, Margaret replied, ‘I’m not sure it’s so simple. We don’t know whether Barbara has recovered enough to work anywhere. And if she has, she could still fall ill again.’
‘But surely—’
‘Honestly, Lucille, you haven’t thought this through. In the very best case scenario, she would be the topic of Conclave gossip. I won’t have her subjected to that. In the worst scenario, we would have to let her go again at some unspecified point, putting her through the same anguish. You know I’m right about this. Is she ever on staff when you travel into the future?’
She wasn’t. Lucille still wanted to offer Barbara a job. Barbara was free to turn them down; at least she would have the opportunity. Making the decision for her seemed wrong. ‘Barbara is one of the reasons why we were successful. Wouldn’t this be a good way to honour that? To show she’s still appreciated?’
‘Ah! You want to make a gesture.’ Margaret smiled broadly. ‘I have the very thing. Name your radio system Beeline.’
‘Name… the radio system?’ Disappointment crept into Lucille’s voice.
‘I think that’s a fine tribute. Now. Shall we discuss the budget you’ll need?’
*
‘Margaret wouldn’t even consider giving Barbara a job,’ Lucille said to her fiancé George. She was visiting him in Liverpool; they were in the kitchen of his parents’ two-up two-down, adjusting his crystal radio set.
‘I’m not surprised,’ said George. ‘That one hates to be shown up.’
‘You don’t think she’s doing what’s best for Bee?’ Lucille leant on his shoulder. His overalls smelt of car paint; he’d been working at the plant in Speke.
‘Only by accident,’ George said. ‘Bee’s better off without her help.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘Because then you’d have to admit Margaret’s no good for you either.’
‘You wish I’d leave?’
‘You should work wherever you damn please. Just watch out for that Margaret. Never trust the aristocracy.’