The time gene, p.48
The Time Gene, page 48
“Ah. You’ve come for Ironside’s belongings,” he said, slurping on the half-melted ice cream. He pointed haphazardly to the rotting bin bag.
Gordonstoun waded gingerly amongst the rotting food waste and reached for the bag containing Murdo’s belongings. As he clutched it, something slithered out through one of the ripped sections. It spun several times in the air and landed in the gravy boat. Gordonstoun, horrified, retrieved it, then wiped it as best he could on his sleeve.
“Er...Sir. I just wanted to run something by you...about this girl, Sir...”
“What girl?”
Rauchmann wiped his brow with a silk handkerchief. Gordonstoun felt as out of place as a rabbit in a goldfish bowl, but resolved to press the point nonetheless.
He stretched out a hand to pass the newly de-gravied photograph of the Anchor to Rauchmann. Rauchmann did not take it, but instead looked at Roxanne as though she were a protuberant boil discovered on his chin. Gordonstoun’s lip trembled.
“Sir, you...er...mentioned this girl earlier, Sir. You said that she was pretty and that she reminded you of a pop star, Sir. Which pop star...?”
Rauchmann’s voice boomed like a steamroller. “I said no such thing.”
Panic thinned Gordonstoun’s voice. “But, sir, she...”
“Pop star? What is this tosh?” he thundered. “She, pretty? Looks like a bloodhound bitch that’s let itself go. She is what in my day we called a minger. Pop star! Raving baloney! I am partial to Schubert, and a little Strauss. What would I want with some girl singer? Now, get out of my sight before I sentence you to the same fate as your friend.”
“But, Governor Rauchmann...”
“OUT!”
Lovelace and another guard seized Gordonstoun by the scruff of the neck, and escorted him from the building.
He stood alone in the courtyard, alone in the quilt of fog that had been thickening all day. The faint beams from the searchlights were dimmed by the thick clouds of mist that fuzzed up beneath each searchlight like mini mushroom clouds. Poor light or not, Gordonstoun was staring at that photo. A probing, intense stare, such as he had never directed at anyone or anything in his life. His heart was palpitating.
He had seen that photo back at Faslane. Just how had he not known before? How had he not recognised her? How could he have forgotten the face that had haunted his days and tortured his nights through fifty long years?
Chapter Forty-five
Tomorrow’s Man
University of Dundee School of Science and Engineering, Thursday 13th June 2002
Seven thirty for eight. He was already late. Truth be told, he didn’t want to go at all. The drinks reception promised to be monumentally dull, and the speeches would be the usual simpering hogwash – the Dean and Chancellor of the university, no less, and the Lord Provost, or was it a stand-in? Quite honestly, he’d rather cook himself something decent, then go to the pub with Valentine-Blake and Chislaw for a few quiet beers. But he was nearing the end of his PhD. Networking and all that. He judged it de rigueur to show his face.
He ran his fingers through his thick curly hair. Would his pinstripe suit and salmon-pink shirt impress? Should he have worn a double-breasted jacket? Oh, Lord, he really should have hired a tuxedo. Damn it, the suit hire place shut at 5:30, didn’t they? Maybe he could still...but no, it wasn’t worth ‘going back’ for a piffle like that.
“Gordonstoun?” said a voice from behind.
The young man recoiled in fright. The thick black clouds overhead enshrouded the city in darkness and forboding. He turned round to face the stranger. The Provost? McNally, wasn’t it? No, it was his depute, that rather weedy fellow. Dolled up in chains and regalia, he looked like his grandmother’s old jewellery stand.
“Call me Gordon...please,” he said to the newcomer in a frosty tone. “I’m afraid you have the advantage on me?”
“Steve. Steve McReadie. Depute Lord Provost of Dundee. We met at the Fabian Society dinner last April, you remember? You’re the genetics whizzkid, aren’t you? I’ve been sent to tell you there’s been a change of plan. The shindig tonight’s been moved to Stew’s place.”
“Stew?” Gordonstoun screwed up his face, thinking of that foul concoction they’d served at Eton, odious soup swimming with boiled beef and greasy dumplings. His mouth twisted at the recollection. Huge house, even huger ego, and an OBE. “Aah, the Lord Provost? But wasn’t he going on a trip, or something? Local council business…in Barbados.”
“Oh, he postponed that,” said the depute Lord Provost.
“Jolly decent of him,” Gordonstoun said. “But why change the venue? Wouldn’t it make more sense to inaugurate the new William Peddie wing in the William Peddie wing?”
McReadie shrugged. “Last minute change of plan.”
Local councillors. Always useless. But this took the proverbial. Gordonstoun mopped his brow. It was beginning to get very hot and stuffy in that pinstriped suit and silk scarf. “Are you quite sure? No. I’m afraid you must be mistaken. Look, that’s Laeticia Bainbidge, she’s a postgrad. “And look! There’s Mercy Shaftesbury, she’s the vice-Chancellor. She’s going in.” He stared in befuddlement at the obstinate depute. “There must’ve been some sort of mix-up your end.”
“No, not at all,” insisted McReadie. “That’s....er...the Tory cheese and wine.”
Gordonstoun shuddered in horror. “Oh, surely not!” He cocked his head to see the light flooding from within. He saw several gowned and robed officials being ushered in with aperitifs and cocktail skirts. “Lordy, Laeticia – who’d have thought it? I never pictured her a Tory.” His brow crinkled again. “And Mercy? Nooooo.... Just this side of Stalin and Engels, is Mercy.”
There was a modicum of panic in the depute’s voice now. “I heard she’d a new man on the scene. Maybe he’s...?”
Gordonstoun raised an eyebrow. “Mercy’s a lesbian.”
The depute stifled a slight tremor of the knuckles. He shrugged. “The trappings of power, then,” he said quickly. “You know how it is. I reckon she wants to try out for the Scottish parliament, and with the Tories in disarray, reckoned she’d more chance of pushing her way up their ranks than Labour’s.”
Gordonstoun looked daggers at Mercy through the glass doors, engrossed in a handshake with a man in a billowing gown and hood, and kissing his skinny wife in her glittering dress and high heels. “Yes,” the depute nodded. “Got an eye for the main chance, that Mercy.”
Gordonstoun screwed up his nose. “Bloody hypocrite, selling out like that,” he said in a peeved tone. “So, where’d you say the science bash got moved to?”
“The Lord Provost’s House. Darling Avenue.”
“Darling Avenue?” But that was at the other end of the city. He pulled an indignant face and pointed to his watch. “Look, Steve, thanks all the same, but I will have to forego the pleasure of your company this evening. Please give my apologies to the professors and fellow students, but I really must be getting home now.” He tried to take his leave, but the depute was blocking his path.
Gordonstoun was finding the politician’s behaviour increasingly baffling. The man was beginning to grate on him now. “Look, forgive me, but I really must...will you let me pass?” Anger shot through him as the infuriating depute once more stepped in front of him.
“Oh, of course, of course,” McReadie stumbled, “if you need to be on your way, I wouldn’t detain you. But Stew was most anxious...most, most anxious...to hear about your PhD.”
Odd, quite odd. He had met the Lord Provost at a post-election cheese and wine in 2001. There, the local heavyweight had looked at him as if he were a pregnant spider nesting in his Sunday roast. A look of pointed loathing, such as he reserved for everyone of Gordonstoun’s background, socialist or not. He’d never made any secret of his views on private education. And yet, here was his depute, insisting the Provost was desperate to renew the acquaintance.
“Genetic markers and forensics...Stew’s passion. He called you a “young prodigy” and mentioned to me several times that he had you in mind for a senior government research post. Half a million a year. Says you’re a credit to the city.”
Gordonstoun’s face softened. “Seriously?”
McReadie nodded a decisive affirmative. Frowning, Gordonstoun checked his watch once more. “D’you reckon we can still make it?”
“Absolutely. They won’t even have cracked open the champagne.”
Gordonstoun, who had a rather large overdraft at the present time, and a hefty credit card bill to boot, hoped the depute would offer to pay a taxi fare. Instead, he asked for a lift, which Gordonstoun found rather galling, especially as he expected the shindig to be even less bearable sober. But £500k a year! He wouldn’t even need a mortgage.
Gordonstoun sensed something was horribly wrong the moment they veered into Darling Avenue. The air was thick, acrid and opaque, and a dense black plume was rising from the end house, jutting over sheets of flame three-storeys high. Debris and sparks vomited out from the walls, angry frothing red boulders deadly as grenades. All at once a chimney enveloped in flame dislodged amid a cascade of debris, crashing headlong into a dark mass in the flowerbed. Screams, terrible screams roared from the garden, shrill as a raven, the screams of a woman being burned alive. Heroic instinct and testosterone converged in Gordonstoun, and before he knew it, he was dashing towards the inferno. Panting like a dog, he mopped the sweat from his brow as a wall of blistering heat repelled him. The smoke slashed at his palate and throat. He coughed hard.
But there was something else, something that churned in his stomach and dredged up the bile. Something he’d only lived through once before. At four years old, when his grandpa put on a pan of chips then fell asleep, and the house went up within minutes. The smell of burning flesh. An acrid assault on his eyes, nose and mouth.
Gordonstoun vomited onto the tarmac.
And then he saw her.
If he lived a thousand years, her agonised face would still be with him each time he closed his eyes. And her screams would still ring in his ears. She was cocooned in a ball of flame, the searing tongues clinging as tightly to her as the plumage of a burning peacock.
Thus far, the depute Lord Provost had stood poker-faced a few paces back from the gate, like a monarch presiding over a battle from a safe distance while armies hacked themselves to pieces. But now, oblivious to the heat, the smoke and the stench, he tapped Gordonstoun on the shoulder. “What are you waiting for?”
Gordonstoun winced at the man’s touch. But somehow, he understood. The memories came gushing back, a vicious surge he could not repel. After his grandfather died, his obsession with time had kicked off - the seemingly absurd fixation that if he concentrated hard enough, he could undo the few minutes’ lapse in concentration that had ended his grandfather’s life. And he’d done it – he’d gone back – but sadly by the time he mastered it, it was over a year since Grandpa’s death, and he could go back only a short time. But today was destiny.
Gordonstoun closed his eyes tightly. He summoned every atom of strength. He borrowed from the singed ground, from the angry sky, from the howling wind. One minute...just one minute!
An eternity later, he opened his eyes. He heard a loud crackle from the roof. Saw the chimney crumble, and slide down the burning eaves.
“Look out!” he yelled.
A screech followed, and a flurry of movement, as the dark mass hurled itself out of the way. The burning chimney crashed into an empty flowerbed, setting alight flowers and shrubs, spawning a massive ring of fire. Jets of flame leapt like grasshoppers from bed to bed, consuming everything. But the girl was safe.
Gordonstoun, still crouched on the ground, was gasping for breath. When he finally straightened himself, he looked round for the depute Provost.
“You knew, didn’t you? That’s why you brought me here. All that balderdash about the venue changing, all that drivel about the Provost wanting to headhunt me... All a ruse, so that I could...”
But the man had vanished. Not a trace of him remained in the billowing smoke.
Chapter Forty-six
The Reckoning
Roxy’s breath was erratic. She stared at the skin on her trembling hands. Lily-white. She stroked the nylon sleeves of her macintosh. Unmarked. Hadn’t a cloud of fire engulfed her just seconds ago? Hadn’t the most excruciating pain she had ever known raged through her every pore? Hadn’t she just smelt her own body, her own hair, burn?
Instinctively, she looked up at the roof. She never knew why. But she saw the chimney crumble and detach. She just managed to jump out of its path. But the flames were thrashing from shrub to shrub...hot, ravenous jaws that devoured all that crossed their path. Her feet skirted round the jets of flame in a deadly dance.
Only seconds and the whole lawn would be alight. Seconds to get herself and the two boys out.
“Liam! Get down NOW!”
Liam, still floundering in the upper branches, followed her voice and hauled Lachlan to the other side, where the branches were sturdier and he could grope his way down.
“Hold on!”
A second chimney pot crashed into the other side of the tree, but Liam ducked and clung on. The flames consumed the tree like wolves, but Liam had reached a branch low enough to jump, and he and Lachlan landed in a heap amid Stew McLally’s smouldering cactuses. Liam’s trouser leg caught fire, but he managed to stamp it out. Between them, Roxy and Liam propped up the unconscious Lachlan and dragged him away. The electronic gates had been broken open, and they could hear sirens…two fire engines and an ambulance...tearing down the street. Bewildered neighbours flailed around in terror and panic. Roxy and Liam dumped the groaning Lachlan on the pavement, and sped off into the night, hand in hand. One flabby man tried to give chase, but they lost him easily.
Roxy’s mind was swimming through black oil. Each time she edged forward, her limbs collapsed under the weight and her face was crushed. She was going to prison…but did it really matter? Roxy, in shame and self-loathing, was seized by an ironic bliss. Had she time-travelled? Did she have her gift back? She must have done...you could not invent pain like that. Last thing she remembered was some posh dude telling her to ‘look out’. He’d sounded like something out of Jeeves and Wooster. What if she could undo all the wickedness of her teenage years? What if she could become a good person after all?
Liam buckled, as though he were running through an acid river, not air. He vomited onto the pristine pavement, then collapsed onto the slabs.
“Liam…come on…we have to get out o’ here…”
Roxy put a hand to his brow. He was clammy, and scalding hot.
“Get…get an ambulance, Rock!” he mouthed.
She stood by his side, frozen with panic. “But, Liam…I don’t want you go to go to jail because o’ me…”
“Aye, well, it’s a wee bit late for that, Rock. Go now!”
5:45am
Leonie was riding a white stallion, her gown of ivory silk shimmering in the haze. Fiorello clasped his arms around her waist as they rode towards a golden archway decked in white roses. As the sun, a radiant white diamond, melted behind the arch, she saw an avenue lined with white-blossomed trees; she saw a vicar in ermine robes and a thousand white-clad guests. But then the horse reared, whinnied, arched its back and threw her to the ground. Her silk skirts tore and blood poured down her legs. Leonie hit her head on the ground and awoke with a stabbing migraine.
Sour sweat covered her body. She was desperately thirsty, and her throat burned. Her mouth was swollen and her lower lip bleeding. The bed felt damp, and the mattress sagged. She tried to get up, but the mattress clung to her. Further down, a rusty stain discoloured the threadbare sheet. Something was crushing her feet. In the dingy half-light, her eyes distinguished a musty room, with peeling wallpaper, one tiny window, loosely curtained off, and a shabby carpet covered in dirty crockery and cigarette ends. She could hear water dripping… in the dream, this must have been the clop of the horse’s hooves. The plaster on the ceiling was crumbling and the skirting boards had holes. The memories flooded back. Souls bonding. Joy and pain inseparable. Pleasure and guilt in a dark tango. She jolted back to Earth. What was making her feet so sore?
Fiorello was perched on the end of the bed, tying his shoelaces.
“Oh, sorry…do I squash your feet?”
“Oh, no – not at all, honey. Must you leave so early?” Leonie flung her arms around his neck.
“I ‘ave a uni lecture,” he said, brushing her aside.
“At quarter to six?”
“I ‘ave lab work.”
Nothing killed passion like the cold light of day, and a violent urge to use the bathroom. Yet she would do the same over again. Why were her memories so hazy? She remembered spinning through a maelstrom of euphoria, yet had no recollection of this or any room. She might have been at the Ritz or in a barn. In the heat of passion, who desired anything else? What cared she for food and water, clothes or even shoes? But now she found herself craving these very things. As she hauled herself out of bed, she shuddered under the cold draught from a window that never shut. She glanced at the chipped wooden door and the rusty hand rail on which Fiorello kept his clothes. She stared at the overstuffed chest of drawers. She spied a delapidated bedside table, a battered lamp and a large pile of letters. She thought of her little camp bed at home, and Nanna’s overcooked stovies.
“Fiorello,” she said, “can I take a shower?”
