‘Does anyone else have anything to add?’ asked Madam President in tones guaranteed to dissuade anyone else from doing any such thing.
No one had. Apparently, we’d all decided to quit while we were ahead.
‘Did anyone think to write all that down?’ enquired Madam President, hopefully.
An excited Professor Rapson shot to his feet. ‘Yes, yes. I’ve got all that.’ He tore a leaf out of a battered notebook. ‘If someone could just make some copies, please.’
And so the historic Treaty of St Mary’s was scribbled in red felt-tip on a page torn from a battered notebook, photocopied, signed by all, and distributed with the reverence of Magna Carta. Which, in its own way, it was.
That done, everyone relaxed for a moment. They would be serving tea soon.
Ellis and I, duty done, stood, stretched, and stepped away from the table.
I checked no one was listening and said quietly, ‘You saved my life. Thank you.’
He looked over his shoulder to check no one was listening. ‘One good turn …’
There was no need to say any more.
‘How’s the leg?’
‘Fine. How’s the arm?’
‘Fine.’
He looked around the room.
‘I see she’s not here today.’
I was baffled for a moment and then realised he meant Barclay. I’d more or less forgotten all about her. How stupid am I?
He continued. ‘It would have been interesting to watch her try to twist this situation to her advantage.’
‘Yes, a Time Police/St Mary’s coalition would be the last thing she wanted. I wish I could see her face when you tell her.’
He turned his head, suddenly intent. ‘When I tell her?’
I’ve had the ground shift beneath my feet on several occasions, but never with as big a shock as now. And for him, too. I could see it in his face. We thought they had her and they thought we had her. We’d all taken our eyes off the ball.
I saw Dr Bairstow’s head snap round. He never missed a thing.
‘You don’t have her, Lieutenant?’
‘No, sir. Don’t you?’
‘Why should we have her? We thought she’d been arrested by the Time Police because of that business with Maxwell.’
‘We thought you had taken her into custody, sir, and were dealing with her yourselves.’
‘So where is she?’
A very good question.
I knew I should have shot her.
Sometime in between me accidentally kicking her downstairs – twice – and Leon leading the rescue, against all the odds, she’d got up and got away. Probably just after the explosion when everyone was on their backs wondering what the hell had happened. Somehow, she’d escaped.
It was a blow. I’d been happily imagining her availing herself of all those very uncomfortable facilities unique to the Time Police and they obviously thought we’d spirited her away for purposes of our own. But no. She’d got away and it was far too late now. I tried to push it to the back of my mind.
And succeeded for nearly thirty minutes.
After half an hour, people started to drift away. I’d chatted briefly with Pinkie and been introduced to Dr Bairstow’s Director, but that had been it. I hadn’t been able to exchange even a single word with Leon, whom everyone wanted to talk to.
While I waited for him, I thought I could collect my few belongings from my room and bring them back with me.
I slipped quietly from the Hall and made my way through the safety tape and polythene sheeting to the staff block. I was thinking about Leon, so when I pushed open the door to my room, it took a few minutes for the full realisation of what I saw to impact upon me.
My first thought was that there had been some sort of blizzard in here. Small, white, fluffy lumps of something lay everywhere. I couldn’t think what it could possibly be. Then I saw the sagging remains of Bear 2.0, skewered to the wall with a knife through one eye. His little body had been ripped open from top to bottom and his white filling scattered around the room.
Bear 2.0, a gift from Leon, who had taken time out from saving the world to bring him to me, and I’d left him in this horrible room, to be torn apart in a fit of spiteful rage by Bitchface Barclay. I felt that I had let him down. That somehow, I had let both him and Leon down.
I stepped into the room on legs that were suddenly weak with shock. She’d been in here. At some point, she’d been in here. Attached to the knife was a note.
Your turn next –
*
Followed by a really nasty word. You know the one I mean. The state of the handwriting and the number of blood-stained fingerprints on the note told me she’d been badly hurt when she wrote it. She must have been desperate to get away before someone found her, or before she succumbed to her injuries. And yet, despite her haste, she’d taken the time to come down here, destroy my one precious thing, Leon’s gift to me, and leave a very tangible threat. How much she must hate me.
And where was she now?