Time and Time Again

17

THEY LEFT CONSTANTINOPLE the following day, first class to Paris on the Orient Express. McCluskey, of course, could scarcely contain her excitement, muttering in wonder at everything she encountered, from the newspapers she bought at the Sirkeci terminal bookstall to the luxurious appointments of her own private compartment. Stanton had decided that they should book their tickets separately. He was still extremely nervous about McCluskey, whose very presence was testimony to her lack of conscience and reliability. If she did do something that drew the eye of officialdom, he didn’t want paperwork to exist that linked them together.

On the other hand, it was fun having her along. He couldn’t help smiling when he joined her in her compartment as the train pulled out of the station. She was just so utterly thrilled.

‘Oh Hugh, Hugh,’ she said, leaning back into the soft leather as the great steam locomotive eased its way through the Imperial capital. ‘How good is this? No, I’m serious. How good is this? Are we not living, right now, the most delicious dream on the planet? We are tourists in history! Everybody’s favourite fantasy. And we have our own private compartments. Private first-class apartment on the Orient Express.’

‘We’re not tourists. We’re on a mission—’

‘I know, Hugh, I know. But we can’t do anything about it now, can we? Not travelling through Europe on a train. You’ve got your wish. We’re out of harm’s way. No butterflies in here. Let’s enjoy it! Look at this exquisite porcelain basin – you pull the strap and it just drops down. How absolutely lovely. That is quality. Not even billionaires experienced that kind of quality in our time. Everything in this beautiful little carriage is made of brass and polished wood and porcelain and leather. Real beautiful things, not plastic and hydrocarbon. And look! The window opens! An opening window on a train – we can actually let in the fresh air.’

She pulled down the window and let out a whoop of pleasure.

Stanton laughed. She was right. It was a pretty fantastic prospect. During his months of training with Chronos he’d never allowed himself to dwell much on the possibility that it might actually happen, that he might find himself living in the past. But now he was. And not just any old past, but early-twentieth-century Europe. A time when the miracles of technology were still virile and exciting: steam engines and flying machines, not smart phones and cosmetic surgery. When there were still wildernesses left to explore and mountains left unclimbed.

‘You’re right, prof,’ he said, speaking louder over the noise of the rattling train. ‘It is pretty exciting.’

‘And a girl can smoke!’ she exclaimed delightedly. ‘I can sit back in my own seat which I’ve bloody paid for and have a bloody fag without some PC jobsworth claiming I’m killing a child in the next county. Go on, have one! You used to smoke like a chimney when you were an undergrad. I can remember bumming one off you at the back of the chapel in about 2006.’

She leaned back and drew, happily, luxuriantly, on her cigarette. Not a hand-rolled one this time either, but factory-made. She’d been like a kid in a sweet shop at the hotel tobacconist’s that morning, buying a dozen different, long-forgotten brands.

‘Players’ navy cut, untipped,’ she said, coughing slightly, ‘made in the days when we really had a navy. Think about that, Hugh. We are living in an age when the Royal Navy is twice as strong as the next two navies put together! Pax Britannica! Britain’s back on top! Feels good, eh? And once you’ve put paid to the Kaiser, Britain’s going to stay on top.’

‘Prof, I’m warning you. Shut up.’

‘Sorry! Sorry. You’re right. Won’t happen again, must keep shtum about the mission. But go on – have a fag!’

‘Can’t. I made a promise … to Cassie.’

‘But, as you’ve pointed out before, she’s not here. And anyway, surely she wouldn’t mind one little ciggie.’

Stanton looked at the tempting display protruding from the archaic packaging. Untipped. Pure tobacco.

Maybe he would have just one.

Just to celebrate. Because it did feel good to be thundering through Turkey on the Orient Express off on the best Boy’s Own Adventure in the universe. Guts saves the British army and the world! Even Biggles would have thought that was over-reaching himself. Why not have a fag to crown the moment? It didn’t mean that Cassie didn’t matter any more. But he was on active service, road rules, what the girls back home didn’t know …

He reached forward.

Delighted, McCluskey held up the pack. There is no happier addict than one who persuades a reluctant friend to join them and validate their addiction.

‘Good man!’ she said. ‘But just so you know, I am aware that you are right to be strict with me. I’ve been horribly selfish and irresponsible and I should be ashamed of myself. But it’ll be all right. You’ll get this job done. I know you will. You’re the perfect man to do it! You are the Guts! That’s why I chose you.’

Stanton paused, his fingers on the tip of a cigarette, about to pull it from the packet. But he withdrew his hand.

It was her last phrase that stopped him.

That’s why I chose you.

McCluskey shrugged. ‘Oh well, your loss. I admire your self-discipline. That Cassie must have been one hell of a girl.’

‘She was,’ Stanton said quietly.

They lapsed into silence, McCluskey smoking happily, smiling to herself as she browsed greedily over the lunch menu.

That’s why I chose you.

Stanton found his mind returning to the previous morning on the Galata Bridge. To the cold damp stones he had picked himself up from. To the moment after he’d saved the mother and the girl and boy.

He’d saved that little family but he hadn’t saved his own.

Now, he suddenly wondered, had it actually been infinitely worse? Had he been the cause of their deaths?

‘Lobster!’ he heard McCluskey exclaim. ‘They are serving fresh lobster. On a train! God, I love this century.’

Stanton got up. Opening the inner door of the compartment, he glanced out into the corridor. McCluskey, salivating over the lunch menu, scarcely noticed.

‘O – M – effing – G,’ she said. ‘They do a sweet soufflé for dessert. You can’t cook a soufflé on a train, surely? Well, let me tell you, boy, I intend to find out.’

Stanton sat down once more and stared at McCluskey.

Could it be true?

Had he really been so used?

They had needed him. That shadowy collective known as Chronos had needed him. Or at any rate, a man just like him. Guts Stanton, celebrated survivalist. Adventurer. Man of proven resource and decisive action.

But they had needed him without ties.

That’s why I chose you.

Stanton’s mind ran back to Christmas Eve, when he’d first learned of Chronos. He thought about the weeks and months since. Running in his mind through conversations past and finding that seeds of doubt had been planted which had only now germinated and were showing on the surface of his conscience.

He should have guessed before. It was so obvious when you came to think about it.

Once more he got up and checked the corridor. This time McCluskey noticed.

‘Bit fidgety, Hugh? Something on your mind?’

‘A bit, yes.’

‘Care to share?’

‘Yes, I would, as a matter of fact. I was just wondering how you knew that there were four of them?’

‘Sorry? Not following. Four of who?’

‘The hit-and-run murderers. The ones in the car who wiped out my family. “All four got clean away.” That’s what you said. On Christmas Eve when we had that first breakfast. How did you know how many of them were in the stolen car?’

‘Well … I don’t know. Did I say that? I suppose I must have read about it somewhere. Why do you ask?’

‘You didn’t read it. It wasn’t reported. Violent death’s a bit too common where we come from to make the papers and there was nothing on the net. No details were ever published. But you knew how many were in the car. “All four got clean away” – that was what you said.’

‘I don’t know what I said, Hugh, and I have no idea what you’re talking about. Now are you going to have a look at this menu? Because I want to order lunch.’

‘Last spring.’

‘What?’

‘That was when Davies said you were choosing your agent. On that day when we were in his Incident Room. When he said that he approved of your choice. Your choice of me. He said that the committee had met “last spring”. And you suggested me. Last spring.’

‘Yes, last spring, last spring, what about last bloody spring?’

‘My wife and children were killed in the late summer, professor.’

‘What has your family got to do with it? I brought up your name because you’re Guts bloody Stanton. You’re an obvious choice.’

‘Yes, a choice who would most certainly refuse the job if it meant consigning the only people he loved on earth to an existential oblivion. A man who in fact would have tried to stop you with everything in his power.’

‘Hugh, please. Come on! What the hell are you insinuating?’ She had put down the lunch menu. And her hand was on her bag.

‘You needed a soldier. A special operative. A trained man. Someone who could adapt to and survive in any environment.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And it would also help if that soldier had some understanding of the past and the people and events that created it. A history graduate would be good. Decent German was another prerequisite, you said so yourself. That’s already a pretty specific order. But when you add to that the requirement that this soldier has to be desperate and alone, without love, a man simply waiting for death, a man who would happily step away from the whole world and everyone in it because there was nothing and no one he cared about any more … What was it Newton said? Let them be without ties.’

McCluskey’s hand was inside her bag now.

‘You might wait a century for such a very specific type of man and still not find him. But Newton only gave you a year.’

‘This is crazy!’

She was smiling, trying to laugh. But for Stanton that big, red, happy face that had always seemed so gleeful now looked sinister. As if a mask had fallen away. He had spent a lifetime reading fear and lies in the eyes of his adversaries and he read them in McCluskey now.

‘You chose me, professor, and then you set about ensuring that I was without those inconvenient ties. I can’t believe I didn’t work it out before. It’s so bloody obvious when you think about it. You murdered my wife and children.’

McCluskey pulled the gun from her bag and pointed it at him.

‘I could try to bluster it out,’ she said, ‘but you wouldn’t believe me. Because you’re right. It is pretty obvious. I mean, what are the chances of finding a qualified man who didn’t care whether he lived or died?’

‘Pretty slim.’

‘We took a view, Hugh. We had to save the world.’

‘And if it had turned out that Newton was wrong? I’d just lose my family?’

‘Collateral damage, Hugh. You know how things go.’

‘Oh yes, professor. I know how things go.’

Stanton’s eyes had narrowed to two slits, burning into McCluskey, who was squirming with anguish.

‘Oh bugger! Bugger, bugger, bugger,’ she said. ‘This is just awful. There we were beginning to have fun and … now I suppose it’s all spoiled. It is spoiled, isn’t it … I suppose.’

Her eyes were pleading. But her gun was steady.

‘You had my wife and kids murdered, professor.’

‘Yes but now, Hugh, now they never actually existed … So it’s OK … isn’t it? To move on?’

‘It doesn’t look very OK, does it? With you pointing a gun at me.’

McCluskey thought for a moment.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I know you can never forgive me and I don’t blame you, of course, but you have a job to do, Hugh. The most important job in history and that’s what you need to focus on now. So here’s what I suggest. Our first stop is Bucharest in about five or six hours, so we just sit here tight together till then and, when we arrive, you get out. I’d go myself but frankly it’s easier to cover you with this little six shot if it’s you that gets out of the carriage. Fortunately we have our own door, which is such a civilized design, don’t you think? You go off and fulfil your mission and I just disappear. You’ll never see me again, Hugh. And I won’t flap my wings too much, I promise. Bit of dinner and the theatre is all I ask and quite frankly I’ll be dead in half a decade anyway. You have the whole world before you. A world you will have saved. Don’t spoil all that for a bit of revenge.’

‘How do you mean, spoil it?’

‘Well, you see, if you won’t get out of the carriage, Hugh, I’ll have to kill you. You do see that, don’t you? So that you don’t kill me. That’s obvious.’

‘But what about the mission? The most important mission in history? If you kill me, the Great War will begin again in just ten weeks. Europe’s great calamity, professor. The thing we came to stop.’

There was a film of tears over McCluskey’s eyes now, although that may have been as a result of the smoke drifting up from the smouldering cigarette clamped between her teeth. She had both hands on her gun now, arms held out in classic firing position.

‘I know it’s wrong, Hugh. And I do care, I care so much. All those millions of young men. The Russian princesses murdered in that awful cellar with their poor jewels sewn in their knickers. The terrible dictators, the wars and the genocides and the starvation to come … but … I’m just a selfish old fool, you see, and I do so want to see the Diaghilev ballet.’

Stanton stared at her. He had always been proud of his ability to read people and yet it seemed he had never known this woman at all. So weak, so selfish. So … appalling a human being.

‘I loved my wife and kids,’ he said.

‘Oh I know, Hugh, I know.’

He stood up. Her knuckles whitened on the trigger.

‘Please don’t make me do it, Hugh! Because I will. I really will. Just get off the train at Bucharest. It’s easy, it’s all good. I’ll be gone, I promise.’

‘Goodbye, professor.’

He reached forward towards the gun. She pulled the trigger.

The hammer clicked against the empty chamber. McCluskey stared at it for a moment in surprise.

She clicked again.

‘Bugger,’ she said.

‘You didn’t think I was going to leave a half-concussed lunatic like you with a loaded gun in her bag, did you?’

She was about to speak but Stanton reached forward and took hold of her by the neck. He pushed his thumb deep into her windpipe, preventing her from shouting out.

‘You were actually going to kill me,’ he said, ‘and screw the twentieth century. I really didn’t think you’d do that.’

McCluskey could only offer a choking grunt in reply.

He dragged her to her feet and swung her towards the outside door of the carriage. In the same movement, he reached through the open window with his free hand and, jamming his back against the frame, opened it from the outside. McCluskey’s eyes widened in terror as the door swung open.

‘You’re scared!’ Stanton shouted over the rattling of the train. ‘Big bullying old Professor McCluskey’s scared. Scared of dying. Christ, I really would have credited you with more balls. Shows what a blind idiot I am, eh?’

The train was travelling through rocky, low-lying foothills. Glancing out Stanton saw that there was a steep, sparsely vegetated scree slope below them. Nobody was going to survive hitting that at speed. McCluskey could see it too. He felt her windpipe convulsing as her body tried to retch with fear. He felt a sharp pain in his shins as she began kicking at them.

He dragged her face towards his own. Their eyes met for a moment.

There was so much he would have liked to say to her.

About how much he hated her. About how much he hoped there was a hell and that she would burn in it for eternity.

But what was the point? He just threw her out of the train.

He watched as her body span and bounced like a broken doll crashing a hundred metres down the slope.

Stanton stepped back inside, leaving the carriage door open.

He checked in McCluskey’s coat and bag for anything suspicious or anachronistic. He took her gun, which had fallen from her hand, her modern medicines and her underwear. There seemed to be nothing else which she had brought with her from the twenty-first century. Pretty much all that was left in her bag was booze and tobacco. The authorities could draw from that whatever conclusion they wished.

Checking the corridor for the third and final time Stanton slipped out of the compartment and returned to his own.

He was now entirely alone in a new universe.