by Jason Ayres
“You know I don’t think that way,” replied Josh weakly, but he knew he had no real answers for what Peter was saying. “I care about all the people I meet and I cared about Rebecca. Don’t forget that you would never have met her if it was not for me, and look at how happy you made each other, even if it only was for a short time.”
“And that makes it OK, does it? Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Look, we’ve talked about this before. You know that you weren’t ever destined to meet her in the original timeline. I know how painful it must be right now but in the long term maybe this is all for the best.”
Josh knew this was a lame argument even as he was saying it, and all it achieved was to make Peter even angrier.
“Oh this has all worked out very well for you, hasn’t it?” shouted Peter, enraged at Josh’s attempts to justify things.
“You never wanted me and her to get together in the first place,” he continued. “Well, now you’ve got your wish. She’s dead and it’s your fault. I hope you’re feeling very pleased with yourself.”
Josh was crestfallen. Here he was looking at the twenty-one-year-old version of one of his oldest friends and he had single-handedly wrecked his life. There must be something he could do to help.
“Peter, maybe there is something I can do, if I can get back to my own time. There will be other versions of Rebecca alive in other universes. If I brought back another tachyometer I could take you to one of those.”
“It wouldn’t be the same her, though, would it?”
“It could be,” replied Josh. “Remember what I said about creating duplicates? I could create a copy of this universe and you could start all over again.”
“Leaving all of my family in this universe wondering where I’ve gone?” asked Peter. “Face it, Josh, whatever you do, someone’s going to get hurt.”
Josh knew he was right. There were no easy answers.
“To think how pleased I was when you came along,” continued Peter. “My life was boring, my love life was practically non-existent, then you come along promising adventure and I meet the love of my life on top. Now look at how it’s all ended up!”
“What do you want me to say?” asked Josh.
“I don’t want you to say anything. In fact, right now, I don’t think I ever want to see you again. As soon as we’re out of here, I want you to go back to Gran’s house, get your stuff and get out.”
“You can’t mean that,” replied Josh. “We’ve been through worse things than this in your future and got through them.”
“What could be worse than this?” asked Peter. “No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to hear it and you probably won’t say anyway because of spoilers. I think it would be easiest if you just got out of my life.”
“If that’s what you want, I will,” replied Josh. “But what are you going to do when my eleven-year-old self turns up as one of your pupils in twenty years’ time. Are you going to tell him to get out of your life, too?”
“You’re talking about a future that doesn’t exist yet and possibly never will,” said Peter. “How many times do I have to explain that this is my life and my timeline and I need to live it my own way? I can’t do that if I’ve got you looking over my shoulder all the time, watching my every step, and trying to steer me in the direction you believe I should go.”
There was nothing more Josh could say or do. Hanging around in Peter’s life was only going to make it worse. He needed to give him some time and space. Maybe once he had grieved properly there might some chance of reconciliation.
“OK,” he said. “As soon as we’re done here, I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Good,” replied Peter, and he meant it.
Chapter Twenty-one
Wednesday 12th February 1992
Rebecca’s funeral took place just over a week later.
Josh hadn’t seen Peter since they had been let out of the hospital six days ago and had made no attempt to contact him during that time.
He had taken his meagre belongings and headed back to Mrs Simmonds at the B&B. With the money from his washing-up job he had just enough to tide him over for another couple of weeks which hopefully would be enough.
During the past week he had witnessed two more people emerge from the time bubble, neither of which he could help. The first time he had been on his own and that had really hit home. Doubtless after Peter had told Christina what had happened, she had washed his hands of him as well. He was back to where he had started six weeks ago, stuck in 1992, alone.
The first person to emerge from the bubble was a filthy peasant dressed in little more than rags from an indeterminate time in the Middle Ages. Josh’s attempts to communicate with the man met with complete failure as he didn’t seem to speak any proper English and just shouted incoherently at Josh in indecipherable tones.
He managed to pick the odd recognisable word from the man’s dialect but that was all. Josh recalled seeing documents written in old English which had developed from being virtually indecipherable pre-1066 up to the level of Chaucer’s time when they were starting to resemble something akin to modern English.
When the man went off shouting around the park at all and sundry it was assumed by everyone he came into contact with that he was some sort of drunken tramp. The police were quickly called and he was carted away.
Four days later a Roman soldier appeared, slightly more lucid, but again speaking not a word of English. This time, Josh was not alone. Professor Hamilton had returned, along with his Geiger counter which he claimed to have adapted to measure tachyon particles.
Unfortunately when the Roman started running towards him brandishing his sword, the Professor panicked and dropped it. He was standing on the riverbank at the time and it bounced straight into the water, not that it mattered. Josh knew that the Professor was years away from any sort of worthwhile tachyon research so the device wouldn’t have worked anyway.
He ended up running across the park with the soldier in pursuit, but fortunately the Professor was young and able to outrun his assailant who was weighed down by his armour and equipment. Once the Roman got into town and starting waving his sword around the police were quickly on the scene to subdue him.
Josh had no idea what had happened to either him or the peasant after that but he hoped he would be able to find out at the funeral.
While all this was going on the flu epidemic had thankfully been contained by the efficient work of the team at the hospital and a mass vaccination was now underway. Doctor Roebuck had finally taken what he had been told seriously, and now they knew what they were fighting they were able to keep it under control. Alfie and Rebecca remained the only two victims to perish from the outbreak.
The only other people Josh had seen in the interim were Jonty and Mary when Josh paid them a visit the day before Rebecca’s funeral.
Jonty had returned home now after recovering from the flu and Mary was still living in his house. They seemed to be getting on famously and Josh wasn’t quite sure what the nature of their relationship was.
He initially suspected that Jonty might be treating Mary like a servant to take advantage of her 18th-century values but after chatting with them for a while it didn’t seem that way at all. Actually, he seemed almost nice, as if his spell in the hospital had given him some sort of personality transplant. Josh left confident that Mary was in the best place for now.
Josh had gone round to Jonty’s with an ulterior motive. His lack of funds was a problem when it came to dressing for the funeral. He completely lacked any sort of suit and couldn’t afford to hire one, so he had cheekily gone to Jonty’s in the hope of being able to borrow some clothes. He had expected to be turned down flat but Jonty was only too happy to help, keen no doubt to impress Mary.
“Be my guest,” he had said as he opened his father’s huge walk-in wardrobe. The clothes were slightly too big for Josh and the sleeves came down over the top of his
hands, but at least he looked the part. He couldn’t turn up to a funeral in jeans and trainers.
The funeral took place at the Oxford Crematorium where there were so many mourners they could barely pack into the room where the service took place. There was a huge police presence there, all of them in uniform in tribute to their fallen colleague.
Peter was there with Christina but completely blanked Josh when he tried to make eye contact before they went inside.
During the service, Adam gave a moving tribute to Rebecca, citing her professionalism and the sadness felt by all her colleagues at losing such a promising young officer.
Josh felt racked with guilt throughout. What Peter had said to him before had really hit home and when the coffin began to disappear behind the curtain to the sound of Queen singing Who Wants To Live Forever, he couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. Peter was right. He was to blame.
He vowed that he must ensure that no one else got hurt, even if it meant putting himself in harm’s way.
Later, when the mourners walked up to look at the flowers in the garden of remembrance, he took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with Adam and Dan.
“That was a very moving speech you gave there,” he said to Adam.
“Thank-you,” replied Adam. “And you are?” This was asked rather formally, as if he were questioning a witness at a crime scene.
“I’m Josh – I was a good friend of Rebecca’s.”
“Really?” asked Dan, looking at Josh as if he was wondering why Rebecca would be friends with this middle-aged bloke.
“Oh yes, we go back years,” said Josh. “I used to work with her mum.”
“Oh, right,” said Adam. “She’s just over there, have you had a chat with her yet?”
No, he hadn’t and he had no intention of doing so. He needed to reply quickly before Adam called the grieving mother over to reacquaint him, at which point it would be discovered that she had never clapped eyes on him before in her life.
“Yes, we had a good chat earlier,” said Josh, improvising as ever. “Look, I’m glad I’ve got the chance to chat to you two. I want to talk to you about something Rebecca and I discussed before she died.”
“And what might that be, sir?” asked Adam.
Josh was finding this quite annoying. They weren’t at work now so why did they need to keep calling him sir? Perhaps it was true what they said; perhaps a good policeman never was off duty.
Josh had decided on a change of policy as part of his plan to ensure no more people got hurt. He wasn’t going to try and cover things up anymore to protect the timeline, he was going to do the complete opposite and that meant getting these two to help him. If he screwed up his chances of getting home in the process, so be it.
He hoped this change of heart might help with any slim chance of making things up with Peter. He didn’t expect to be forgiven overnight, if ever, but at least he could demonstrate he was finally putting other people before himself.
“The thing is,” he began, “Rebecca was very interested in all the recent missing people turning up in Oxford.”
“Really?” said Adam. “Well, that was official police business and with all due respect to Rebecca, God rest her soul, she shouldn’t have been discussing it outside of work.”
His younger colleague nodded in agreement.
“It wasn’t just police business, though, was it? Tracy Ellis? Jonty Barrington-Smythe? Their stories were all over the papers.”
“He’s got a point, sir,” said Dan.
“He hasn’t got a point at all,” said Adam. “I went over all this with Rebecca, more than once. People go missing and turn up all the time.”
“What about Kevin Austin?” insisted Josh. “Where was he for twenty years? Stopped off for some sweets on the way home from school and got lost for a couple of decades?”
“Clearly a hoax,” replied Adam, dismissively. “The press love that sort of thing. It sells papers.”
“So how do you explain this sudden outbreak of a disease that hasn’t been seen since 1919?” persisted Josh. “And what about Alfie, the man who died in hospital – have you identified him yet?”
“There’s no shortage of John Does dying in hospital,” said Dan. “The drunks and the down-and-outs. They don’t tend to carry their passports around on them for our convenience.”
Josh avoided mentioning either C.S. Lewis or Mary. He didn’t want to draw attention to them as they had a decent chance of establishing new identities in the present time. What he was keen to find out was more about the two most recent arrivals.
“Speaking of down-and-outs, what about that so-called tramp who turned up in the park last week?” asked Josh.
“How do you know about him?” asked Dan.
“I was there,” said Josh. “I knew someone from the past was going to turn up. Look back through your records and figure it out. Someone shows up every four days.”
“That was not someone from the past,” insisted Adam. “It was just some tramp.”
“Who appeared from nowhere?” asked Josh. “And where is he now? Did you manage to get any sense out of him? I doubt it.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but we had to detain him under the Mental Health Act,” replied Adam. “He was ranting incoherently in some language we couldn’t decipher.”
“You’d have understood him a thousand years ago,” replied Josh.
“He was clearly drunk and deranged,” replied Adam, ignoring Josh’s comment. “We had no choice.”
“What about the Roman, then? Did he get the same treatment? He arrived four days later and in the exact same spot. Doesn’t that strike you as unusual?”
“Not particularly,” replied Adam. “Anyone can string a few random occurrences together and see a pattern.”
“I thought spotting patterns was how you lot solved crimes. No disrespect, but how did you become a detective, exactly, as you don’t seem particularly interested in doing any detecting?”
“That’s because there is nothing to detect here. Now, Rebecca was an outstanding young officer but she shouldn’t have become as obsessed as she did over all this. Oxford is full of eccentrics, nutters, student pranksters, alcoholics and various other weirdos. Anyone can go to a fancy dress shop and hire a Roman soldier’s outfit, so please forgive me if I don’t give your theory about him or any of the others time-travelling from the past much credence.”
Josh was fighting a losing battle trying to get this unimaginative man on-board, but he had one more card to play.
“Look, if you don’t believe me, go down to Christ Church Meadow on Saturday morning after 10.30am and see what happens. I’ll even meet you there and show you exactly where to look.”
“You know I don’t know who belongs in the loony bin more – that tramp, that nutter dressed up as a Roman, or you,” remarked Adam. “Don’t you agree, Bradley?”
“Definitely, sir,” said Dan who wasn’t about to disagree with the boss, even though he found Josh’s theories interesting. He knew what side his bread was buttered on.
“You won’t come down on Saturday, then?” asked Josh.
“No, I won’t and nor will anyone else on my force,” replied Adam. “This whole thing is just insanity and if I was to put anyone on to investigating this it would be a waste of police time. I don’t want to hear another word about it. Come on, Bradley, I want to get to the wake. I could use a stiff brandy after standing around in the freezing cold listening to all this.”
With that, the pair of them walked off, leaving Josh alone. He turned around, to see if he could see Peter and Christina and he didn’t have to look very far. They were standing right behind him.
“How much of that did you hear?” he asked.
“Enough,” replied Peter.
“So you’re speaking to me, then?”
“Out of respect for Rebecca, just for today, yes.”
Josh noticed that Christina was holding Peter’s hand. He was about to make a remark
about her not wasting any time but stopped himself. He wasn’t about to start another row. Unfortunately his brief glance and the look on his face betrayed him.
“I’m just comforting him, alright?” said Christina.
“Of course,” replied Josh, not wanting to push it. Secretly if the two of them got back together it would be the best thing that could happen from the point of protecting the timeline.
It wasn’t so good for Peter, though: he would have to go through a lot of pain in a few decades’ time when their marriage would break down but it would all work out alright for him in the end. It was best if Josh just let things run their natural course.
“From what I heard the police still aren’t remotely interested,” remarked Peter.
“No, they don’t want to know,” said Josh. “It’s bloody frustrating. That’s why I still need your help.”
“Why were you asking them anyway? I thought you wanted all this kept quiet. And do you really expect me to help you again after everything that’s happened? I can’t believe the cheek of you.”
“Don’t do it for me. Do it to protect the public,” urged Josh. “An armed Roman soldier showed up in the park yesterday. He could have killed someone. We just don’t know who or what is going to turn up. That’s why I went to the police for help but if they insist on burying their heads in the sand like this, then it’s down to us to keep people out of harm’s way.”
“And who is going to keep us out of harm’s way?” asked Peter.
“We know what to expect. We can take precautions.”
“Like what – a suit of armour?”
“Professor Hamilton’s offered to help. He’s got a mobile phone. We can ring the police straightaway if there’s a problem.”
“What do you think?” Peter asked Christina.
“It’s up to you,” she replied. “But I would stay as far away as possible. Hasn’t this man caused you enough heartbreak already?”
