Simon Clark - The Fall

‘The bastard.’

‘I’d appreciate some help finding him.’

‘Sure, but if he’s that dangerous we should be going after him mob-handed. Not just the two of us.’

‘Okay, we’ll try and round up some others. What shape are Ryan and Sue in?’

‘Sue’s fine. But all Ryan’s doing is staring into space and saying “This is another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.’”

‘His one and only line, huh? Sounds as if he’s getting flaky.’

‘Him and a dozen or more others you can mention. Have you seen the state of them? They’re all pretty badly shook up.’

‘Yeah,’ Nicole gave a weak smile. ‘All time travel should come with a government health warning, shouldn’t it?’

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ He touched her arm lightly.

‘I’m fine. You go back to the amphitheatre and see if you can muster people to look for Bostock. He’s probably in there,’ she said, nodding in the direction of the wood.

‘You could come back with me’ He scanned the trees, then shot her a concerned look. ‘I don’t like to think of you alone here with that maniac on the loose.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Look, I’m still standing in the car park. All those people are just 50 yards away.’ She smiled. ‘What harm can come to me here.’

‘Okay.’ He sounded reluctant. ‘I’ll be five minutes. Now stay there. Okay? Don’t go anywhere.’

Well , she thought, watching Lee’s lanky shape moving back across the car park, I’ve got the makings of my posse; so, Mr Bostock, watch out, watch out, wherever you are…

Before Jud left the boat, he told them he needed something from the cabin.

Carswell sniffed. ‘I wouldn’t bother bringing any money. I haven’t a clue what year this is, but my guess is we’re in the days of pre-decimal currency. Now it’ll be pounds, shillings, pence and all that.’

‘No, not money, something else that’s far more important.’ Jud sounded enigmatic enough to prick Sam’s curiosity, but he didn’t comment.

‘So, what do you make of the United Kingdom, my American friend?’ Carswell asked.

‘I liked it better when it was 1999.’

‘Don’t worry, you’d have to go back another two thousand years before you found the Brits indulging in cannibalism or anything as unsavoury as that.’

‘Everyone ready?’ Jud asked, stepping lightly from the narrow boat. In his hands was a cardboard wallet of the kind in which you’d store documents. ‘Then shall we begin our trip into post-war Casterton?’

Sam Baker drove the Range Rover into town. Carswell sat beside him in the front passenger seat. Jud Campbell was in the back.

And, hell, the world was looking different now. Lots, lots different.

A dirt track now connected the amphitheatre with the main road. As Jud pointed out, the amphitheatre only became a tourist attraction in the late 1960s. With this being sometime in the 1940s, the amphitheatre was, as far as the locals would be concerned, a hole in the ground occasionally visited by a student writing his or her thesis on Roman Britain.

He wished Zita had come with them. He found her presence reassuring. But she’d stayed to help Jud’s wife take care of the tourists who’d been injured by the latest jerk through time. Some were suffering from shock – which was purely a psychological reaction to what was happening to them. Then there were the grotesque injuries. Like the man with the bird fused inside his head, and the man with grass growing through his feet. The latter probably wasn’t seriously hurt, but Jud’s wife had urged them to find antiseptic creams in town.

Sam joined the main road to town. It looked pretty much the same as it had in 1978, or in 1999 for that matter. Of course, the road signs were different. It seemed narrower. And there were great clumps of horse droppings scattered here and there.

Jud noticed, too. ‘Horses were still commonly used for transport right up into the 1950s. So watch out, you’ll probably find a few horse-drawn delivery vehicles on this road.’

Sam eased the Range Rover down to 40. He didn’t want to compound their problems by running the car into the ass of some carthorse ambling along the road.

The fields at either side of the road, Sam noticed, were smaller; there were far more hedges, too. On the road itself there were few cars. And what vehicles there were looked pretty much like museum pieces: boxy cars that seemed peculiarly high, with running boards and spoked wheels, and painted in colours that were predominantly black or grey. The sole exception was a cream-coloured sports car driven by a jaunty-looking man with a handlebar moustache and a leather flying helmet.

Carswell said, ‘I think our own vehicle is going to turn heads. An electric-blue Range Rover in 1940s Britain is going to stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.’

Sam nodded. ‘I think we’ll just have to live with that interest. If anyone asks, just say it’s an experimental car from the States. I think they’ll buy that, don’t you?’

‘Wait – wait! Stop the car,’ Jud shouted suddenly from the back.

Sam braked hard and the car skidded slightly on the carpet of horse crap that covered most parts of the road. ‘What’s wrong? Jud? Where are you going?’

‘Back in a minute.’

Carswell said coolly, ‘If he’s going to be jumping in and out of the car every five minutes then perhaps we should drive on without him.’

Sam frowned. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’

‘Does he? Maybe he’s losing his marbles, too. You know, time travel doesn’t appear to be agreeing with most people.’

Jud came running back to the car, his gold waistcoat flapping open as he ran. ‘See this? Yuk, bit of a mess I’m afraid.’

‘Hell, Jud, what’s that smell?’

‘What’s left of someone’s fish-and-chip supper, it looks and smells like to me,’ Carswell said dryly. ‘That’s one souvenir we could safely leave behind, don’t you think?’

‘No,’ Jud said. ‘Look, in days gone by, fish and chips were wrapped in old newspapers. This should give us a pretty accurate date. Uh, I think vinegar was even more pungent in… let’s see.’ Jud peeled back a corner of the newspaper from a clot of cold chips and scraps of batter-covered fish-skin. The paper was nearly transparent with grease. ‘Good heavens, it’s wet through with fat.’

‘And just think, no-one had heard the word “cholesterol” in those days,’ Carswell observed in that dry voice of his.

‘Let’s try farther down where… Ah, got it.’

‘You can see a date?’

‘Yep. 14 thMay 19…’ Jud screwed up his eyes to read the blurred print. ‘1946. That’s it: 14 thMay 1946 – a Wednesday.’

‘The paper might be old if it was used to wrap fish and chips.’

‘But not that old – no more than a month at the most,’ Jud said, dropping the greasy newspaper back onto the road then wiping his hands on his handkerchief. ‘So,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘The summer of 1946. That means the war’s been over for a year. There’s still rationing. And most of the world is undergoing some pretty miserable austerity measures to pay for the war effort.’ He shut the car door and Sam accelerated away.

‘If Britain in 1946 was hardly a land of milk and honey,’ Carswell said, ‘do you think we’ll just be able to walk into a pharmacy and demand antiseptic cream? We’ve no cash, remember.’

‘That should he our first priority.’ Jud still rubbed at his fingers with the handkerchief. ‘Perhaps we can find a local doctor who’ll—’

‘I don’t agree.’ Carswell’s voice sounded crisp, as if addressing a business meeting. ‘Our first priority should be to find this Rolle gentleman. From what you say, he should be able to tell us what’s happening: why we’ve come adrift in time, and how we can return to 1999.’