He strode from the room. There was a lot of shouting in the corridor. An awful lot of shouting. I could hear Leon. And Peterson. And Mr Markham – of course he would be here somewhere, wouldn’t he?
Since Dr Bairstow wouldn’t let us have a goat, Mr Markham was the nearest thing we had to a mascot. Small, spiky-haired, and perpetually grubby, he had acquired unit-wide respect by running into a horse’s bottom and laying himself out cold. And that was just the beginning of his adventures here at St Mary’s. Invincibly cheerful, he had been badly injured on several occasions. He always bounced back. We reckoned he was indestructible. He was coming with me to Edinburgh.
I could also hear Helen’s voice cutting effortlessly through the racket. And Major Guthrie’s. Everyone seemed to have a lot to say. It was tempting to go out there and make things worse, but I resisted.
The ear-splitting shriek of the alarms just went on and on. Then, suddenly, there was blessed silence.
The shouting, however, continued for some considerable time afterwards.
Eventually, Leon returned, closing the door firmly behind him.
‘What was that all about?’
‘While visiting Mr Peterson, Mr Markham contrived to set fire to the curtains in the men’s ward. Everyone’s blaming you. Come here.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Because I want to hold you again. Come here.’
‘I mean, why are they blaming me?’
‘You instructed him to practice his conjuring tricks. The curtains ignited. All over now. Come here.’
‘The trick involves producing silk scarves, for crying out loud. How the hell could he possibly manage to set fire to the curtains?’
‘How should I know? I’m only grateful he’s not sawing a woman in half out there. Please, come here.’
We sat in the window seat and he talked quietly to me. His words were simple, but came from his heart. They reached out and touched my very core. And the whole black, ugly, gunky mess that had been inside me for so long just cracked apart and flowed away, like the tears on my cheeks.
Chapter Sixteen
My Mary Stuart briefing was set for two days after I left Sick Bay.
Not without a great deal of trepidation, I assembled everyone in my office to divvy up the mission responsibilities. This would be our first mission with such high levels of interaction. This went against all our training, all our instincts. We would not be melting into the background this time.
Present were Chief Farrell, the world’s most reluctant volunteer; Mr Dieter from the technical section; Major Guthrie, and Tim Peterson. Mrs Enderby, representing Wardrobe, separated Professor Rapson from Dr Dowson. Miss Schiller, Miss Van Owen, and Miss Lee squeezed themselves together at the foot of the table.
I looked at them. They looked at me. And off we went.
I said, ‘Has everyone read through their background notes?’ and they all nodded. ‘I’m going to run through this from beginning to end because some of you know more than others. After the briefing, I’ll be happy to answer questions and listen to any suggestions you may have. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and if there’s anything you think I’ve missed, please speak up.
‘Initially, we thought this mission would be fairly straightforward, but things have moved on and we now have two mission objectives. The first, as you know, is to ascertain whether Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland is married to, or about to marry, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. If not, one of our objectives is to insinuate ourselves into her court and – nudge – events back into line. This is high-profile stuff. There will be no question of us working quietly in the background. For the first time ever we’ll be looking to interact with the major players of their age. And we don’t have long. Darnley is murdered on 10th February 1567 and Mary is supposed to marry Bothwell on 15th May. This gives us a window of only about 90 days to find out what’s gone wrong and to put it right. So we’re going to have to move fast. Make no mistake about this, people – we will be in harm’s way.
‘The second objective is to locate and neutralise the probable cause of all this. I present to you the villain of the piece, Clive Ronan, already known to most of us here, I believe.’
I brought up the best image we could find.
‘Not content with getting his arse kicked in the Cretaceous Period and in the Alexandrian desert last year, we believe he’s attempting to manipulate events for his own personal benefit. You’ve read your notes; I don’t have to tell you the consequences if we don’t act.’
A damaged timeline. Altered History. Personal consequences. Paradox. Nothing good for anyone.