Catherine Fisher: The Slanted Worlds

Tottenham Court Road was quieter than in his time; the cars and trucks strangely cube-like and slower, the exhaust fumes smokier, making him cough.

There were no signposts, no street names; not wanting to talk to anyone, he summoned up a hazy map of London from his memory and headed north, working his way to the grimy thoroughfare of Euston Road and trudging along it, head down, rain-blinded and cold.

He had been to St. Pancras before, to catch the Eurostar to Zurich—he remembered a huge Victorian station, beautifully renovated. Now it loomed up before him, soot-blackened and oddly shrunken by the barrage balloon tethered above. Crowds of soberly dressed men and women surged out of it, many in uniform.

Inside the vast arrivals hall, at least it was dry. He shook his wet hair and looked around. Trains, people, porters. Echoing voices. The roar of engines.

Near the refreshment room was a window in the wall, the sign LEFT LUGGAGE painted above it in dark green letters.

He walked quickly over.

No queue. Amazing.

He glanced carefully around. A few naval officers sat laughing at a round table; a soldier and his girl embraced over a pile of suitcases. No one took any notice of Jake.

He took the ticket out and went up to the window.

Behind it was a wooden counter, and behind that a keen thin man in a railway uniform who said, “Yes?”

“Come to collect this.” Jake pushed the ticket across.

The man read it. “Six fifteen. Did you deposit it yourself?”

“No. It’s . . . for my aunt.”

“Right.” The man looked even more keen, all at once. “Just wait there, please.”

He went into the depths of the room. Jake saw hanging coats, boxes, piled trunks, a stack of corded parcels. Behind him a train came in, and he turned in delight at the vast eruption of steam, the hissing brakes of the engine.

“Sign here, please.” A small brown suitcase was slid over the counter at him; he turned and scrawled the name J. Wilde on the sheet, pulled the case from the man’s hand, and walked hurriedly away.

His heart was pounding; he felt as if everyone was watching him, but a quick glance reassured him. Even the keen official was already talking to another customer. Jake walked quickly along the platform to an empty bench at the far end, sat down, and took a silent breath.

So now he was a time traveler and a thief.

No. Because Alicia had insisted. Demanded, with her last breath, that he take it . . .

He lifted the case onto the bench and clicked the fastenings; they weren’t locked, and the lid opened easily.

He gazed at the contents, oddly disappointed.

Papers. Letters. Account books. A birth certificate. A red leather photo album. He picked that up at random and opened it. Stiff Victorian portraits, a family group on the grass outside a prosperous-looking rectory. A little girl with a parasol and a tiny dog. Was this Alicia as a child?

He put the album down and rummaged further. Long white evening gloves. A box of chess pieces. A fan, a tiny container with scissors and nail-things. Then jewelry, plenty of it, wrapped in twists of white tissue paper. He opened one; saw a gold ring, obviously expensive. The sad detritus of a dead woman’s whole life. He twisted the paper back around the ring and put it away. None of it was any use to him.

As he went to shut the case, something in the bottom slid slightly. He pulled it out.

A black velvet bag tied with cords. At the end of each cord was a tassel of gold threads. He tugged the cords open. Inside was a metal container, circular, a dull gray. He tugged the lid off and saw to his surprise a roll of ancient film, its edges perforated, its frames small and dark. He pulled out a section and held it up but could make out nothing in the dull smoky light. He rolled it back, closed the container, slipped it in, and turned the bag over.

A few letters were embroidered elegantly on the back.

J.H.S .

He stared at them for a second of frozen disbelief, then dived back to the suitcase and scrabbled through the papers, finding the birth certificate and unfolding it with shaky fingers.

It was worn thin, the folds broken through.

He read her name ALICIA MARY. And her father’s name.

JOHN HARCOURT SYMMES.

“Symmes had a daughter!” He said it aloud in his astonishment; Symmes, who had stolen the obsidian mirror and got it to work, the man he and Venn had confronted in the smogs of Victorian London. That woman had been his daughter?

Then the mirror would have been in her house.

He hissed with frustration; some papers fell to the floor. He leaned after them but a hand in a brown leather glove got to them first.

Jake looked up.

The man was thin, average height, his face refined, his eyes dark with intelligence. He wore a long, loose brown coat and a hat Jake thought might be a fedora.

He was obviously, and without question, the police.

“These are yours?” he said.

“Er . . . Yes.” Jake flicked a glance sideways. Two uniformed constables waited a few feet down the platform. With them was the keen man from the left luggage office, who said “That’s him” with irritating smugness.

The police officer nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Jake Wilde.” He didn’t know what else to say.

“Identity card? Ration book?”

“I . . . don’t have them with me.”

“Don’t you now. Address?”

“Wintercombe Abbey. It’s not in London, it’s in the West Country. I’m staying there with my godfather.” It seemed the time to make an impression. Jake stood and drew himself up. “Look here, I simply don’t see—”

“Don’t pull the public schoolboy cant with me, son.” The man’s voice was soft and calmly authoritative. “Don’t tell me Daddy is a magistrate. Don’t tell me Ma Symmes really was your aged auntie. Just step away from the bench.”

Jake didn’t move. “And you are?”

“I’m Scotland Yard, son. Like I said, away from the bench. Now.”

Jake nodded. He shut the lid of the suitcase and with one quick, fluid action, flung it in the policeman’s face.

Papers flew out in a cloud; the jewelry clattered like rain, but Jake was already running; fleeing down the platform at top speed, leaping baggage, ducking a trolley piled with milk churns.

Yells rang out behind him; he sensed the policemen after him, but he was fast; he could outpace them.

Steam gushed, a fog of hot air. The locomotive beyond was preparing to move, carriage doors already being closed. He flung himself forward, grabbed one, hauled it open.

Leaping in, he slammed it behind him, gasping, then brushed his hair back and walked firmly along the corridor into a first-class compartment, sat down, and smiled breathlessly out of the window.

The train shuddered, shunted, stopped. A whistle blew.

Trying to appear calm, Jake craned his neck to see out. Only steam swirled on the platform.

Then with a crash, the compartment door slammed open.

A red-faced sergeant burst in, grabbed him, and forced him up. “You’re a bleedin’ tricky little beggar, and no mistake.”

“Let go of me. You can’t do this!” Jake struggled fiercely, but the man’s grip was iron. He was swung quickly around.

Standing in the compartment doorway, the man from Scotland Yard looked hardly out of breath. His glare, though, was steely.

“My name is Inspector Allenby. I think you’ll be coming to the station to answer a few questions, Mr. Jake Wilde.”

“For what? What have I done?”

Allenby shrugged. “Attempting to travel without due and proper identity, obtaining goods under false pretenses, resisting arrest, and very possibly, high treason. Take your pick. You’re in a heap of trouble, son.”