I waited.
For the first time ever, I saw him at a loss. Finally, he turned back into the room, saying, ‘It seems I owe you both an apology. I really had no idea of Knox’s identity and purpose when I sent you to The Red House. I understand it wasn’t a pleasant experience for either of you, and I’m more pleased than I can say to see that you emerged from it mostly unscathed.’
This was unexpected and unfamiliar, but he soon reverted to normal. ‘Max, that your instincts are so sound is, I believe, a tribute to your training and development and St Mary’s takes full credit. Your urge to remove yourself as quickly as possible was, under the circumstances, absolutely the correct thing to do. Subsequent events – less so, of course, but we have already discussed that.
‘His disappearance will cause more than a stir. I don’t think St Mary’s will be implicated in any way. We should receive nothing more than a cursory interview, but you can rely on me to provide any alibis you both may need.’
Farrell said, ‘Thank you, sir.’
He sighed once more and then seated himself at his desk, folded his hands and looked expectantly at me.
‘Well, Dr Maxwell, what do you have for me today?’
He knew perfectly well why I was there, but I think it helped us all to pull ourselves back into the here and now. Assembling people and files, I took him through everything, step by step. Schiller and Van Owen walked him through The Play. His office filled up with papers, diagrams, cubes, and disks. They’d worked it up very nicely. We booted up his data table and they brought up their data stacks. He peered closely, firing questions at them, but they’d done their work well and had their answers ready. I was proud of them.
When they’d finished, he thanked them politely and escorted them to the door. They escaped.
He returned to the rotating data stack and regarded it silently.
‘I assume you have more.’
I told him about Chief Farrell’s dreams and the bleed-through. He listened attentively and Farrell rounded it all off with his theory about changing History to save Annie. Both their faces were expressionless, so I made sure mine was as well.
At the end, I said, ‘I agree that individually, it’s not that strong, but if it’s all put together sir, I hope you’ll agree it is at least worth investigating.’
‘I do agree. However, while you were concentrating on this particular problem, Chief Farrell has been studying the records from Number Four. Chief, I believe you have something to add.’
‘I think so, sir. By downloading and analysing the jump history of Number Four, I’ve managed to trace most of its movements since it was stolen from us. He did indeed make a jump to Edinburgh, 1567.’
‘Well,’ I said to him, ‘surely that’s good. We know where to find him. We yank him out before he can do any further damage and neutralise him. With extreme prejudice.’
He said slowly, ‘No, it’s not good at all. Mr Ronan was still a comparatively young man when he escaped from St Mary’s. He appears to have arrived in Scotland only a few months after Annie Bessant’s death, obviously still hell-bent on changing History and not caring for the consequences.’
I turned to Dr Bairstow. ‘I don’t understand this, sir. Why didn’t History intervene? Why didn’t History kill him there and then and spare us all of this?’
They looked at each other and then Dr Bairstow said, ‘You have answered your own question, Dr Maxwell. We must not be “spared all of this.” If he is killed as a young man then he will not be alive to interfere with us in the Cretaceous or Alexandria or anywhere else. Our past will change. St Mary’s might not exist and again – paradox. We are on the horns of a dilemma. Either inadvertently or not, Mr Ronan has rendered himself untouchable. Neither we nor History can do anything. We must investigate and rectify this anomaly, yet we cannot kill or interfere in any way with the cause of it – our Mr Ronan.’
‘So what can we do?’
‘Last year, we undertook to police the timeline and make ourselves responsible for any and all irregularities. Therefore we investigate. We identify the problem, and attempt to repair the timeline before it gets any worse. As they say – a stitch in time …
‘Dr Maxwell, start putting things together, please. I want a …’
‘Actually, sir,’ I said, bringing up another data stack, ‘Dr Peterson and I already have.’
He read through it once.
Then he read it through again. Chief Farrell was still working his way down the stack, eyebrows climbing as he did so. I had to say I agreed with him. But there was no alternative – Peterson and I had run through all the files several times and in the end the choice had been between Farrell, Peterson himself, and Major Guthrie – an unlikely third. Farrell had the edge.
He was looking bemused.