Helen Douglas: Chasing Stars

Then

She ran, her long red hair billowing behind her. The harbour wall was high and narrow, its surface slick from the recent rain. Yet still she ran. As she neared the end of the wall, she risked a look behind her. He had slowed to a walk. She had nowhere to go. Below her, the swollen sea churned.

‘Wait, Eden!’ he shouted. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

She hesitated, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder, before launching herself into the air. Arms flailing frantically, she fell. The sea sucked her under.

Travis stopped and studied the surface. The sea was too rough to tell where she had landed. He kicked off his shoes and tugged off his jacket, all the while watching patiently for her to surface. The moment her head bobbed among the waves, he dived in.

It could have been worse. His forehead just scraped the jagged rocks concealed beneath the water. Blood streamed from the wound, but he was pretty sure it was just a graze. He surfaced and searched around him, the high rise and fall of the waves making it difficult to see much of anything.

As he floated to the top of a large wave, he saw her, swimming in a splashy front crawl towards the opposite headland. He dived beneath the surface, where the water was calmer and the wind less of a problem. Opening his eyes in the grey light, he began to swim in the same direction. He would catch up quickly. Her trainers and her clothes would weigh her down and she was not an accomplished swimmer. This would be easy.

He saw her feet kicking up and down in front of him, almost within reach. One strong push from him and he was able to reach out and grab her shoe. She jerked to a stop and kicked out at him, but he simply grabbed the other foot. He’d got her.

Her frenzied kicking and thrashing reminded him of a fish out of water and he smiled to himself at the strange irony of his imagination. He surfaced briefly for a lungful of air, saw the wild panic in her eyes, the realisation that she was going to die.

It didn’t usually happen this way. Travis preferred to kill people unexpectedly, so they didn’t have time to feel fear or fight back. He wasn’t a sadist. He liked to imagine that those he killed had a happy thought in their mind at the end – or failing that, nothing more disturbing than a plan to pick up toothpaste on the way home or take the dog for a walk.

It was different with Eden. She’d been clever enough to realise that he was going to kill her and she had run. Nearly got away with it too.

He reached forward and placed one hand on the top of her head, forcing her under the water. She was surprisingly strong for a young girl, though he knew that the survival instinct made people discover hidden reserves of strength. He began the methodical counting – training told him two minutes was enough in most cases – and began to formulate his story. Eden was helping him take photos of his restaurant when she fell in. He dived in to save her, but the sea was too rough. He couldn’t find her until it was too late.

Suddenly he was dragged from his reverie. Her hand grabbed at his shirt and pulled him under. He hadn’t expected this, hadn’t prepared his lungs for a lengthy spell underwater. She was trying to hit his head, but the water took all the force out of her punch. He could tell she was weakening, that this had been the last desperate attempt of a drowning girl.

He admired her, actually. She had spirit. In another time she would have made a good agent.

He watched as her mouth opened and she sucked water into her lungs. Bubbles made their way towards the surface.

Grabbing her arm – if he let go of her now it could take hours to find her again in this unsettled sea – he swam towards the beach, grateful for the onshore wind.

When a big wave finally crashed him on to the sand, he felt a huge wash of relief. This had so nearly gone wrong. Had she survived, had she lived for several more decades, chances were at some point she would have inadvertently said something about the future. But now the timeline was safe once more.

He checked her pulse, made absolutely certain that she was dead, before heading into town to call the emergency services.

Now

The tunnel wobbled. Ryan focused all his concentration on keeping the ship centred. It threw a sudden curve to the left and his heart jerked. He’d only ever encountered curves like that in time-travel simulations. It usually meant the imminent collapse of a portal.

This had to work. He had to make it. Everything – nine months of anguish, of begging, borrowing and stealing – had been about this.

The tunnel was narrowing. He swore. If it collapsed, he was space dust. A quick glance at the control panel told him he needed just ten more seconds. There was a chance it would hold that long. There was nothing more he could do anyway. It was too late to alter course. He squeezed his eyes shut, afraid to face the end with his eyes wide open.

Counting backwards in his head, he wondered each moment if this second would be his last. When he reached zero, he unpeeled his eyelids and saw the green of the farmhouse garden.

He’d made it.

The question was: had he made it in time?

He released the hatch and ran down the steps to the garden. Rain fell in torrents, bouncing off the ground and forming streams on the hard surfaces. Turning to the house, he quickly observed that there were no lights on. There were no cars in the driveway. He was either too early or too late.

She had drowned in the harbour in Perran. Five miles away. It would take him the best part of an hour to run there. Too long.

He raced up the lane to the hamlet of Penpol Cove. He could see nothing but the flickering blue glow of television screens behind curtains and a row of neatly parked cars. The residents were all locked safely away in their homes, out of the storm. This was a tiny dead-end place. Someone would have left their car unlocked with the keys inside. He tried the car doors. The fifth one opened. He checked the usual places – sun visor, glove compartment, CD storage area – before realising the keys were in the ignition.

Gunning the engine, he raced along the bypass into Perran. Squinting through the rain and into the darkness, he searched for any sign of her, but there was none. He jumped out of the car when he reached Perran and ran towards the harbour.

There she was. He could see her standing at the end of the harbour wall. She threw a look over her shoulder at Travis, who was walking – with the confidence of someone who knows he doesn’t need to hurry – towards her. He would reach her in twenty seconds, at a guess. Ryan would need a minute.

How had it come to this? How had nine months of planning and plotting brought him to a place where he was perhaps forty seconds too late? He sprinted harder, trusting his feet to find the right place on the narrow wall, hoping that he’d find traction on the wet surface.

She jumped.

‘Eden!’ he yelled, unable to prevent himself.

Travis turned.

‘No!’ yelled Ryan, pounding the distance between them.

Staring at the water, Travis removed his jacket and shoes, then dived in.

Was he too late? How long did it take to drown? He was nearly there. Pulling off his jacket as he ran, he tried to remember what Eden had told him about the rocks near the wall. Which side were they? He knew he needed to throw himself far out if he was to avoid them. Pausing just for a moment, he used the toe of one foot to hold down the heel of the other, as he kicked off his shoes.

He could see them, struggling together about ten metres from the wall. He launched himself into a dive, aiming as close to them as he could.