Simon Clark - The Fall

Zita said, ‘But had the ladies really travelled back in time or were they were seeing ghosts, or at least claiming to?’

‘No, not really. The buildings and the people were solid. Your modern ghost-hunter is more likely to attribute the couple’s experience to a time-slip. That is, due to some anomaly in the cosmos the palace of two hundred years before suddenly slipped forward through time.’

‘Or the two ladies slipped back in time,’ Sam said.

‘Oh, come on,’ Zita said. ‘Fairy stories. Nothing but fairy stories.’

‘Look at any half-decent book about the supernatural,’ Jud said. ‘There are dozens of similar accounts. In 1991 a farmer in Scotland looked out of his window to see a dozen or so men walking by his house dressed as Roman soldiers. He thought they were youths in fancy dress. When he went outside to ask them what the hell they were playing at, there was no-one there. And there have been cases of people waking up in old houses in the middle of the night and noticing that furniture has been mysteriously rearranged, or that there is a fireplace in the bedroom where there was no fireplace when they went to bed. When they get up in the morning the room is back to normal. These people experienced time-slips; somehow they either saw back through time, or were actually transported there.’

‘Time-slips, my foot,’ Zita snorted. ‘Dreams or alcohol abuse, more like.’

‘It’s something,’ Lee said.

‘It’s rubbish,’ Zita said with feeling as she slammed the gear-stick into first and drove out of the car park. Sam guessed she was pissed off because they’d found no answers. Now she drove aggressively, as if questions about what had happened to them were rising like ghouls from the road, and she, Zita Prestwyck, was intent on flattening each and every one of them beneath the fat tyres of the Range Rover.

Jud said, ‘It’s my belief that the amphitheatre and an area of land surrounding it have come adrift in time. Remember the front half of the cow, the neck of the bottle and the remains of the cyclist? I think they were straddling the boundary when the time-shift occurred.’

‘You mean just half of the cow and part of the bike and the cyclist’s hand were transported back?’

‘That’s what it looks like to me.’

For a while they fell silent as they digested Jud’s hypothesis. Meanwhile, Zita drove faster. Insects splattered on the windscreen.

A moment later, Lee leaned forward. ‘Is it a bad time to ask a question?’

‘Shoot,’ Zita snapped.

‘Where are we going?’

‘I’m going to do what I should have done hours ago. Have a damned good meal and plenty to drink.’

She slipped into top gear and barrelled the car along the country lane. By this time the sun was setting behind the hill. This was the end of a summer’s day in 1978, Sam reflected. Somewhere in America a junior version of him was probably playing with his toy cars in his parents’ New York apartment. It would be another six or seven years before that lightning strike in Vermont would knock him out of the pear tree and kill his two friends.

Earlier Jud had said he didn’t want to interfere with history, that even though they’d come back in time he’d do nothing to change past events.

Sam Baker wasn’t so sure. The extra fingers that served as his thumbs began to tingle again.

Now they had the opportunity to play God. What could they do?

What would they do?

Right now Nicole Wagner wanted time to go head over heels again. She wanted it so much she ached from head to toe. She wanted to find herself sitting there in the amphitheatre with the rest of them.

She’d be safe there.

She knew it.

She shifted her position in the tree so she could see what Bostock was doing. For the last ten minutes he’d been searching the ground around the tree. He’d even gone as far as the abandoned car that lay at the bottom of the rock face. When he’d reached the car, which seemed a good, healthy distance from her, she’d begun to climb down out of the tree in the hope she could outrun him to the river. Once on the river bank she might see someone.

But Bostock had seen what she was doing and he’d run back, laughing and holding up his arms like a parent ready to catch a child jumping down.

Instantly she’d clambered back into the safety of the branches.

Well, temporary safety, she told herself. It would be dark in an hour or so. She knew he’d try something then to get at her.

After a while she’d become so hot in the gorilla suit she’d wriggled out of it.

Even though she wore a T-shirt and cycling shorts underneath the outfit, Bostock had wolf-whistled and clapped. His mad eyes had watched her every move as she’d pulled herself out of the great woolly bitch of a thing. And, God, could she murder a drink! Her throat had dried out completely. Even her tongue felt rough and leathery.

Just then Bostock returned from foraging around the tree; in his hand he carried a hefty stick. He rapped the trunk with it.

Instead of making a thudding sound it rang like a gigantic tuning fork.

‘Solid iron,’ he called proudly. ‘You could break coconuts open with this.’ He sounded loonily cheerful. ‘Come down, blonde girlie.’

‘No.’

‘Promise not to hurt you.’ He beamed up at her with a sunny benevolence. ‘We can talk.’

‘No.’

‘Come down here. I won’t do anything to you.’

She shook her head.

‘ Bitch .’ He slashed at the tree trunk with the iron bar.

Nicole felt the vibrations run through the tree into her hands and feet. ‘Bitch. I said, come down here. Now!’

‘Go away… please.’ Nicole’s voice was a dry croak. ‘Just leave me alone.’

‘But you saw what I did to Marion. Now people are going to believe you when you tell them I killed her. They won’t believe me when I say how she used to go on and on at me, ridicule everything I ever said and did. Never satisfied, always comp – Hey! What are you doing? Shut up! Shut up! ’

But Nicole had seen a man strolling by the river with his hands in his pockets.

‘Hello!’ She yelled as hard as she could. ‘Help! Help! Up here! This way! I’m over here!’

Already the man had heard and was looking round. She jumped up and down on the branch and waved.

‘Shut up, shut up, shut up…’ Bostock looked round wildly, not sure who she’d seen.

She hissed down at him. ‘That’s scared you, you bastard, hasn’t it?’

‘Shut your mouth now… be quiet.’

‘Will I hell. You’re going to get caught, and they’re going to take you to jail and bury you there forever.’

‘Shut up!’ He was almost pleading now. His eyes looked wild, frightened.

‘Over here!’ Nicole yelled at the man on the river bank. ‘Help! I’m in the tree!’

The man paused, tilted his head to one side.

She jumped up and down on the branch, waving, shouting.

The man still stood there, cocking his head to one side, no doubt hearing the distant cries and wondering just what on Earth was going on.

Maybe it’s kids fooling around , he’d be thinking. Suddenly Nicole realised that he might just shrug his shoulders and walk on along the river bank.

She’d be stranded here until after dark.

Then no doubt that homicidal maniac Bostock would find some way to reach her; he’d bring that iron bar down on her head. After that, he’d bury her body in a shallow grave alongside his cooling wife.

‘Hey! Over here! ’ She shook a branch vigorously. ‘Help I’m here! Please help me!’

‘Shut it,’ Bostock hissed, striking the tree trunk with the iron bar. ‘Shut it, or I’ll shut it for you.’