A cold hand touched me. ‘What about Kalinda?’
‘It’s rather funny, actually. Barclay started throwing her tiny weight around, introducing inspections and paperwork and bureaucracy and I got the impression that spurred on by the redoubtable Miss Black, they all rather enjoyed a spell of civil disobedience. It all got a bit out of hand though when she tried to put Dieter on a charge for the damage to Pod Eight. Apparently, words were exchanged and Miss Black and Mr Dieter left the building to cheers and applause.’
I had to laugh. Good old Kalinda. I couldn’t help wondering just how civil the disobedience had been. I knew, none better, how very creative St Mary’s could be in their disobedience while actually doing exactly as they’d been told.
‘But, of course, the key people are now all gone. There’s only Andrew Rapson left and he’s keeping his head down. And Doctor Foster, but they tell me the fight’s gone out of her. I don’t think she realised how deeply attached she was to Peterson. Barclay’s running a historical research organisation without any historical researchers. Nothing’s moving and people are leaving in their droves.
‘So, tell me about you.’ She was relentless. She had been a schoolteacher after all. In the end, I just gave her the bare facts. Sacked. No work history. Unable to get work. No money. Cold flat. Chest infection.
I managed to get it all out in about six brief sentences. She patted my hand gently but said nothing, which I appreciated. I never know what to do with sympathy. But she kept patting.
‘What? I said.
‘I’m so angry. And so is Edward. This should not have happened. We don’t just throw our people out into the streets, Max. Do you think this hasn’t happened before? There’s an exit procedure. You should have been offered alternative employment at Thirsk for a year, to give you some sort of employment history and ease you back into outside life. Remember Stevens? And Rutherford? Do you think we just cast them adrift? She knew this. She’s a spiteful, jealous cow!’
She brooded a while and then said with determination, ‘You must stay here. No, don’t say anything, Max. I watched you through the café window and I don’t know what you were thinking, or maybe I do, but I’d like you to think of my house as a haven, at least for a few days while you recover your strength. I hope you’ll stay. This is a big house, you know, and sometimes …’ She trailed away to give me time to appreciate her loneliness. The redoubtable Mrs De Winter had never had a lonely moment in her life, but was making me a face-saving offer I couldn’t refuse.
I smiled a little and said, ‘Well, if you’re sure I won’t be in the way …’ She laughed and after a while, so did I.
To relieve the embarrassment I picked up the Horse again. It felt good in my hand and it comforted me a little. Strange about the trapdoor though. He’d always been so definite about them wriggling out from under the Horse’s tail like so many heroic tapeworms. I looked under the tail and saw a tiny hole, exactly where …
I said, ‘Do you have a paperclip?’ She looked surprised but rummaged in a drawer and produced a box. I took one, un-bent it, and inserted it into the tiny hole. There was a click, the trapdoor in the Horse’s belly sprang open and a little box clattered onto the table. The remote control of his pod.
Something inside me woke up.
I tried to think clearly. I could use this. I could return, now, to the Cretaceous, as near as I could get to that awful night and bring them back. If they were still alive. And if they weren’t … well, that wasn’t important. The point was that I could go. Now. I started to get up.
‘No, wait,’ she said. Being a teacher she obviously did mind reading as well. ‘No, I don’t mean you can’t go. Obviously you must go, but you’ll only get one chance and you have to do it properly. Now, the first thing is to bring the pod here so we can check supplies, equipment, and suchlike. Once we’ve ascertained our resources, we can make a proper plan.’
One surprise after another. She knew not only what the device was, but what it related to. I was beginning to have a great deal of curiosity about these sisters.
‘Do you have a back garden?’
She flung the curtain aside to display a back garden the size of half Rushfordshire. I’d never used this gizmo before, or seen it used, but it seemed relatively simple, even for me. There was only one button. Presumably you pressed it. Walking out into the garden, I selected a spot and, hoping it had a built in safety margin and wouldn’t materialise on top of me, I pressed it. Ten feet away from me, one of those rotary washing-line thingies crumpled flat under the weight of an invisible pod.