I pushed myself to my feet. To confront her. My voice shook with emotion, although which emotion, I couldn’t have told you. I felt like a pressure cooker – ready to explode at any minute and bring half the building down with me.
‘Is this why you brought me here? To take the blame and get the Time Police off your backs? Am I to be sacrificed for something I didn’t do? I was dying at Agincourt, so you thought you’d bring me here and I’d be so grateful for a couple of extra weeks of life that I’d put my hand up for anything? Well, I tell you now, Mrs Partridge, I am not your puppet. I don’t care what you want me to do – I won’t do it. You’ll have to get another Maxwell from somewhere. It shouldn’t be a problem – you seem to have an inexhaustible supply.’
I had much more to say but it never happened. The overhead light flickered wildly. Shadows flew around the room. I’d finally done it. I’d finally made Mrs Partridge angry.
We stared at each other. I would not back down. She could whistle up storms and portents and shake the earth and it wouldn’t do her the slightest bit of good, because in this world, I’d done something so terrible that I couldn’t live with it, and if she wiped me off the face of the earth now, she would be doing everyone a favour.
‘Go on,’ I shouted. ‘Go on. I defy you. Do your worst and do it now because I’m finished with you.’
I hadn’t realised she was so tall. She regarded me long enough for my first faint stirrings of fear to register. Then everything was still.
‘Dear me,’ she said lightly. ‘I do think we should sit down, don’t you?’
I had no memory of moving, nor had I intended to, but there I was, sitting on the bed, listening to the birds singing outside on a lovely afternoon.
‘I think we need to update each other. Shall I begin?’
I didn’t want to do this. ‘I’m facing a hearing at four o’clock. I need to concentrate on that.’
‘Well, you have an hour or so yet.’
‘I need to prepare some sort of defence.’
‘I’m sure you’ll successfully wing it, just as you always do.’
I gave it up. And it would be nice to get some answers. ‘All right. You begin.’
‘The Time Police must be stopped. If they are not – if St Mary’s cannot prove its innocence, then people will die. Dr Bairstow, Peterson, Guthrie, you – all the people on whom St Mary’s depends. Their removal will pave the way for a new director to be appointed – we both know who – and the events you worked so hard to prevent in your own world will occur here because there is no one to prevent them.’
‘But,’ I said, ‘how can we stop them? We are guilty. I’m guilty.’
Once again, I stood on the precipice of panic.
‘No,’ she said, slightly exasperated, ‘you’re not.’
‘But I can’t prove it. No one’s going to believe me. I as good as admitted who I was. In public. In front of everyone. Everyone thinks I’m Maxwell.’
Now she was really exasperated. ‘You are Maxwell.’
I was back to being confused again. Only a short journey for me.
‘But how does that help? If I’m Maxwell they’ll shoot me because of Helios. If I’m not Maxwell, they’ll shoot me because I’m an anomaly.’
‘I am sure that if you take the time to think carefully, everything will become clear.’
I was bloody sure it wouldn’t.
‘If I give myself up – will they let the others go?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Then why am I here? Am I to be sacrificed to get the Time Police off your backs?
‘Certainly not. Where do you get these ideas?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. In between being sick, chased, frozen, shot, chased again, shot again, covered in mud, covered in ash, sick again … A crowded schedule but still leaving room for the odd existential query – why am I bloody here? For God’s sake, Mrs Partridge, what do you want me to do? Give me some sort of clue.’
‘I cannot. You must choose your own path.’
‘What path?’
Silence.
‘Perhaps,’ I said bitterly, ‘I should just let them shoot me.’
‘You have died once in this world. Try not to do so again.’
‘Aren’t I supposed to die? Isn’t that why I’m here? I’m to be executed to get the Time Police off your back.’
‘On the contrary, you are to do your very best to remain alive.’
‘Why?
‘To tell the truth.’
‘You mean admit to being Maxwell.’
She said again. ‘You are Maxwell.’
True.
She continued. ‘You are making this far more difficult than it needs to be. I am sure, if you think about it carefully, you will see the wisdom of admitting who you are.’
I doubted that. A thought occurred to me.
‘Did you kill me? As a punishment for what I did with Helios?’
She smiled, but not with amusement. ‘I did not get the chance.’
I sat back, overwhelmed.
‘Perhaps this will help. Drink this.’