Simon Clark - The Fall

‘You might be right,’ Jud allowed in a relaxed, almost sleepy voice. The wine was working its magic. ‘Still, I can’t help but remember Rolle’s warnings, that time was coming apart at the seams.’

‘That there were barbarian hordes ready to ride out and pillage the modern world?’

‘That’s what the man believed.’

‘Maybe he was right, but with every day that goes by it seems more and more unlikely. Unless they’re raiding other time zones, as you’ve just mentioned.’

‘In which case it’s out of our hands.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Ah, but I wonder, Sam… Call me a superstitious nut but I do still wonder if we’ve been put here, in 1865, for a reason.’

‘Possibly. But we’ve had no celestial messages written in the sky; no-one saying “Beware the ides of March” or the equivalent. So I guess we carry on with life as it’s lived now.’

‘And not worry about tomorrow?’

‘Got it in one, Jud. Now, I think I’m going to find Zita and ask her for a dance.’

Jud’s smile was warm. ‘Ah, you two. Is the word on the grapevine right?’

‘It depends what you’ve heard.’

‘That I might have to wear this big top hat again before long.’

Sam grinned. ‘You might have heard right there after all, Jud, old buddy.’

Jud slapped Sam on his broad back. ‘I’ve also heard on the grapevine that our Mr Gainsbrough, the baker, keeps a fine bottle of port or two. I’m going to find out if that’s true as well.’

‘Then lead the way, Mr Campbell. Lead the way.’

‘Have you tried the Madeira?’

‘No, I stuck to red wine.’

‘You must try it. It’s not as sweet as I expected it would be… has a musty raisin flavour…’

They strolled back through the darkening orchard. The stars shone clear, bright as silver dust. There was singing coming from the house now; all boozy and happy, veering off every now and again into good-natured laughter. So much for misinformation about staid Victorians. In the back yard a dog barked in a rough-and-ready harmony with the music.

As they turned the corner of the house and headed for the door, Sam heard the sudden shrill whistle of a policeman. It came in short urgent blasts.

Some new drama was unfolding out there in the street.

Sam knew within two minutes that it would be a day to remember.

And not just because of Ryan’s wedding day and all the happiness that had gone hand in glove with it.

At the sound of the whistle Sam knew instinctively that something unsavoury was hitting the fan. Stomach muscles snapping suddenly tense, he ran through the front garden to the gate. There was shouting, dogs barking.

In the street a man sat on the cobbles nursing his hand. A policeman blew his whistle. Meanwhile another couple of men were trying to steady horses jittering about in the shafts of a mail coach. One horse kicked back, striking the coach timbers with a God-Almighty thump.

‘What’s happened?’ Jud called as he ran up.

The policeman stopped blowing his whistle. ‘Some vagrant tried to make off with the mail coach.’ He blew the whistle again while glaring down the street. ‘But we’ll have him… we’ll have him good and proper.’

Sam bent down to look at the man who was nursing his hand. ‘Bloody feller, knocked me one,’ the mail-coach driver grunted. ‘What a fucking crack. Stick or sommat. Look at that.’ He held up his left hand for Sam to see. Blood gushed from a cut across the knuckles. ‘Damn bastard.’

Sam looked up as a hefty man came panting along the road from the direction in which the policeman was staring. The man held two massive bulldogs by their leashes. The dogs slobbered and panted.

‘Good job you were passing, Harry,’ the policeman said. ‘He were an evil character. I reckon your dogs put the wind up him.’

‘Good pair of brawlers, these,’ the big man grunted. ‘If Jug and Apollo get their teeth into yer they’ll never let you go. There’s the lads.’ He patted the bulldogs on their huge heads.

‘Did you see where the devil went?’

‘Somewhere over the fields in the direction of Danby Wood.’

‘He’s probably got himself a camp out there.’ The policeman slipped his whistle back into his pocket. ‘He can’t get far. I’ll get some men out tomorrow. If you aren’t over-busy, Harry, you’ll be more than welcome with those two dogs.’

‘Oh aye, Ben, they love a bit of sport, these do.’

‘Right, we’ll set off from the station at seven.’

‘I’ll be there, Ben.’ With that the man allowed the dogs to pull him away down the street, their heads swinging from side to side, tongues hanging out, dripping saliva onto the cobbles.

‘You all right there, coachie?’ the policeman asked, shining a lamp down onto the man’s bleeding hand.

‘I’ll mend… Just get us up onto me feet.’

Jud and the policeman took an arm each and helped the coachman up. As they did, Sam noticed something lying by the kerb. He picked it up. ‘Is this yours?’ he asked the coachman.

‘Is it sod. That’s what he must have clobbered me with.’

‘What is it?’ Jud asked as the policeman held up his lamp to shine the light onto it.

‘Oh…’ Jud breathed. ‘I’ll be damned…’

‘Funny-looking thing.’ The policeman scratched his chin. ‘What do you make of it?’

‘It’s an axe,’ Jud said. ‘Only it has a bronze head. See how yellow it is?’

‘An axe with a bronze head? It won’t be much cop. Thing’ll be soft as putty.’

‘But it’s still sharp enough to take your head clean off.’

Sam looked at Jud. ‘A Bronze Age axe?’

Jud nodded, his face serious. ‘That’s exactly what it is.’ He fixed his eyes on Sam. ‘So we’ve a pretty good idea where it came from.’

Sam looked down at the blade that was slick with blood. ‘And we know just who would have been carrying it.’

A fortnight later Sam Baker was working the ferry, bringing people back and forth across the river. He and Jud had little doubt that the attack on the coachman on the night of Ryan’s wedding had been the work of a Bluebeard. The man with the bulldogs had surprised him into dropping his axe as he ran.

This might have been a scouting party in advance of the main attack.

But it all went quiet again. The Bluebeard wasn’t found. And pretty soon life’s steady routine had regained its comfortable rhythm. Ryan had returned from a honeymoon in Brighton with his new wife and moved into the Gainsbrough family home, sharing it with the baker, his wife, her widowed sister and a clutch of children whose names Sam could never remember.

At the same moment that Sam was rowing across the river with a man and his baskets of mushrooms, Lee Burton was gathering mushrooms of his own in the fields at the back of the farmhouse. It was there that he saw the figure watching him from the woods.

Lee Burton stopped dead. With the figure deep in shadow he didn’t recognise who it was, but the way they stared at him was enough to make him look twice.

Carrying the wicker basket by the handle, he shielded his eyes against the bright October sun.

The figure remained there, watching him, apparently reluctant to leave the shadows of the forest.

He walked towards the trees, curious.

Sometimes one of the lads from the music hall would come out to play one of their carefully-worked-out practical jokes. (He’d already fallen for going to the hardware shop for a long weight , only to find it was really a long wait – hardy ha, ha, boys. And he’d even almost – but not quite – been suckered in with the one about buying a jar of elbow grease.) Jokes could be elaborate, with fellow actors raiding the costume store for disguises. Just last week he and another actor dressed as policemen had had the stage manager believing he was being arrested for bigamy. The rest of the cast had laughed until tears had run down their faces. Stage manager Stan hadn’t seen the funny side of it. After he’d twigged, he’d chased them around backstage with a length of planking, shouting so loud his face had turned blue.