by Winona Kent
“Hello,” Charlie said.
“Ah!” the woman replied. “Jolly good! Just the person I wanted to see. I went to the museum but it was all locked up. I rang the telephone number for inquiries posted on the door and spoke to a frightfully helpful young woman.”
“Natalie King,” Charlie said. “My office manager.”
“The very same. Miss King told me you were on your way to London. I’m so glad I’ve caught you because I’ve got something you might find interesting.”
She unknotted the string and unfolded the burlap. Inside was a charred and pockmarked piece of metal the size of Charlie’s fist, a rusty fragment of something that had obviously survived a great blast.
Charlie took the piece of metal into her hands and examined it.
Mr. Deeley, meanwhile, had returned from his exploration of the platform. “This is a most interesting artefact,” he observed.
“It’s a piece of shell casing,” the woman replied. “From an anti-aircraft gun during the war, I should think. I discovered it in a field while I was walking one day, and was wondering where it might best be housed. Do you think it would suit your museum?”
“Brilliant,” Charlie said. “Yes. Thank you. It would. I know exactly where I can put it.”
“There’s something else which makes this terribly interesting,” the woman said. “It seems to possess a rather unusual quality.”
She produced her pocket watch, opened it, and held it close to the lump of metal.
“Do look.”
Charlie and Mr. Deeley both looked. And then looked again. The hands of the pocket watch were winding backwards, very slowly.
The woman drew the clock away, and the hands ceased their movement.
She held it close again, and the hands, once more, began to tick backwards.
“What’s causing that?” Charlie asked, intrigued.
“Haven’t a clue,” the woman replied. “Possibly an instance of unusual energy… possibly some sort of magnetic effect. It is, without a doubt, a very special piece of shrapnel.“
“Then I promise I’ll keep it safe.”
Charlie wrapped it back up in its burlap covering, and placed it in her bag.
“I well remember my first train journey,” the woman mused, turning to Mr. Deeley. “I was very small, and living in a village that was much like Stoneford. My parents were taking me to see London, and what an adventure that was!”
“I am very much looking forward to it,” Mr. Deeley replied. “But how do you know it’s the first time I am travelling aboard a train?”
“It’s written all over your face, Mr. Deeley,” the woman replied, amused. “I’m an excellent judge of character. I can tell you’re excited.”
“I am,” he admitted. “Although the circumstance of our travel is less than happy.”
“Ah,” the woman said, “yes. Yes, of course.”
She turned to Charlie. “Miss King did tell me about the funeral arrangements. So terribly sorry about your grandmother. It’s never an easy thing, is it?”
“Thank you,” Charlie said. “She was lovely.”
“I know,” said the woman, turning back to Mr. Deeley. “You’ll not be disappointed with London, I promise. And here I must here bid you a hasty farewell, as I seem to be required elsewhere.”
“Wait,” said Charlie. “Can I have your name and contact information? So that I can properly note the donation in our records?”
“You can put me down as Mrs. Ruby Firth,” the woman replied. “And you’ll always be able to find me—I’m never far away. Good morning!”
And she rushed off.
“Is my delight at climbing aboard a train for the first time really so evident upon my face, Mrs. Collins?”
“Everything is evident on your face, Mr. Deeley. Sometimes you remind me very much of a child, filled with wonder at every new discovery.”
“I believe it would be a disservice to you, Mrs. Collins, to mention that you sometimes remind me of my mother.”
“I hope I don’t, Mr. Deeley.”
Wisely, Mr. Deeley said nothing further, as the 09.33 from Weybridge to London Waterloo came into view on the tracks to the west.
• • •
Mr. Deeley was studying Charlie’s clever phone. The train was provisioned with Wi-Fi, and he was making full use of it, exploring a website that featured English serial killers.
“Here we are,” he said. “The Middlehurst Slasher. The unsolved murders of three unrelated women who all lived in the same geographical area, in or near the village of Middlehurst. The first was Annie Black, aged seventeen, the unmarried daughter of a farmer, who, with her mother and three sisters, was employed as a maker of straw bonnets and hats. She was last seen by her father, walking towards the village, where she had arranged to meet a gentleman wishing to buy a special bonnet for his wife’s birthday. Her mutilated body was found in a stand of trees very near to where the current South West train line runs, between Middlehurst and Brockenhurst.”
Mr. Deeley glanced up at the trees, and at the rolling land streaking past the window of the train.
“Very near to here, I should think.”
“Yes,” Charlie agreed. “And when her body was located, it was noted in the police files, but not widely reported, that a cherished bracelet she had been wearing was missing.”
Mr. Deeley returned to the details on Charlie’s mobile.
“The next victim was discovered some three months later, in August 1849. Mary Potter, aged thirty-four, the unmarried daughter of a brick-maker. Her father reported he had last seen her on the morning she set off to visit her cousin in nearby Huddleswood. She never arrived, and her body was found some three weeks later, under a bridge, close to Middlehurst. Her throat had been cut, and a silver ring which she had inherited from her grandmother had been stolen.”
Mr. Deeley consulted the window once again. The train was travelling over just such a bridge.
“And the last. Matilda Ferryman. Who was married to Silas Ferryman.”
“The distant ancestor of Reg Ferryman,” Charlie mused. “The Stoneford Ripper-Offer.”
Mr. Deeley laughed, and then grew suddenly serious. “This is of interest, Mrs. Collins. Did you know that Silas Ferryman was employed as a blacksmith in the village of Middlehurst, and that he worked with his father-in-law, Cornelius Quinn?”
Charlie looked at Mr. Deeley.
“I didn’t,” she said. She paused. “Matilda… Matilda Ferryman? Could this be the same Matilda we looked up earlier? Jemima’s daughter? Matilda Quinn?”
“It would appear so,” Mr. Deeley replied, reading further. “Matilda Ferryman was discovered dead in her bedroom after attending the annual Christmas celebration at Joseph Sewell’s Middlehurst manor with her husband.”
“Hang on, “ Charlie said. “Joseph Sewell. Father of Edwina Sewell. Who married my great-great-something ancestor Augustus. You met him!”
“Indeed,” Mr. Deeley replied. “I could hardly forget that particular encounter, Mrs. Collins.”
“Etched forever in my mind, Mr. Deeley, for your bravery and your sense of honour. So, a personal connection on both sides. How fascinating! Do carry on!”
“Matilda Ferryman was discovered dead in her bedroom after attending the annual Christmas celebration at Joseph Sewell’s Middlehurst manor with her husband. It was further discovered that her father’s fortune, which was considerable, had been stolen. As was a locket, Matilda’s favourite piece of jewellery. It was assumed that poor Matilda had awoken and confronted the thief, who had attacked her in the bedroom and cut her throat. Although she was married, and her body was discovered in her home, and not outside, Matilda Ferryman has always been considered the third victim of the Middlehurst Slasher, because of the identical method in which she was killed.” Mr. Deeley gave the clever phone back to Charlie. “I should like one of these of my own.”
“I’ll get you one when we come back,” Charlie promised, “as long as I can be certain y
ou won’t be spending all your time on dating sites.”
“What is a dating site?”
Charlie smiled. “Never mind,” she said. “If you have to ask, you don’t need to know.”
But Mr. Deeley’s mind was already occupying itself with other matters.
“I had often thought of visiting London when I was employed at Monsieur Duran’s manor,” he said. “It was a wish I entertained, for a time when I might have been able to afford the days away, and the fare aboard the coach.”
He paused.
“If the war was more than seventy years ago, how is it the lady at the train station came by that piece of shrapnel lying in a field? I think it unlikely to have been there all of this time, undiscovered.”
“Who knows?” Charlie mused. “Another New Forest oddity. The mysterious collaboration of geology and time. It’s not altogether unheard-of. Bits and pieces of the past are always popping up to the surface, where you least expect to find them.”
• • •
Waterloo Station was, at half past eleven on the morning of Friday, the 11th of October, nothing short of chaotic. Mr. Deeley stayed close to Charlie as she led him through the platform turnstile and onto the brightly lit main concourse.
Since arriving in the twenty-first century he had not ventured much beyond Stoneford. The journey to Totton to dig up and disassemble the air raid shelter had been a notable exception.
And now, here he was, transplanted into the middle of a bustling railway terminus, which swarmed with an excess of people that, at this hour, might well have rivalled the entire population of Stoneford in terms of numbers.
He suddenly stopped walking and grasped Charlie’s arm, tightly.
“Mrs. Collins.”
“Don’t panic,” Charlie said. “I don’t like crowds, either.”
“It is not so much the abundance of individuals,” Mr. Deeley replied, “as the realization, Mrs. Collins, that I have absolutely no idea where I am. I am… lost. Is this London?”
“This is London. Well, one of its train stations, anyway. Waterloo. London’s outside.”
“Waterloo,” Mr. Deeley said. “Is it named as such, in order to commemorate the battle?”
“I think it’s named after the bridge that’s nearby. But yes, Battle of Waterloo. 1815.”
“I remember it well,” Mr. Deeley replied. “And, in fact, I counted among my friends several former soldiers who had fought there, and lived to tell the tale. One of them even recalled catching a glimpse of Napoleon, astride his horse, although it was from a very great distance, and only for a few seconds. If only they could know that a bridge, and, indeed, an entire railway station, would be named after the place where they had forfeited their arms and legs. And lost their compatriots.”
“You’re a walking history book, Mr. Deeley. Your life, before you met me, must have been absolutely fascinating.”
“I’m glad you think so, Mrs. Collins. For I considered my previous life perfectly ordinary, and certainly without anything outstanding to recommend it. It is my new life, here, which I find full of fascination.”
He raised his head, and took stock of his surroundings.
“Have you some sort of diagram as to where we are to proceed next? A navigational chart?”
“On my phone, yes. But we won’t need it. We’re going by tube.”
“A tube?” Mr. Deeley hung on to Mrs. Collins’s arm for dear life. “Why must we be enclosed in a tube?”
“It’s another train. But it runs underground. Down there.” She pointed to the station’s floor.
Mr. Deeley seemed frozen in place, unable to move.
“Are you all right, Mr. Deeley?”
Mr. Deeley took a moment to compose himself. “I am, Mrs. Collins. Although, I must confess, I am not without some small degree of trepidation. We have arrived here aboard a vehicle which does not require horses and owes its rapid forward motion to the same force which empowers the lights at night inside your cottage. Now, you inform me there is a similar vehicle which tunnels through the earth like a worm possessed.”
“A worm possessed,” Charlie mused. “I’ve never heard it called that before. Very apt. Come with me.”
Mr. Deeley reluctantly followed Charlie to the Underground entrance.
“Wait,” he said. “These steps are in motion.”
“Yes, it’s an escalator.”
“We do not have such things in Stoneford.”
“We’re lucky to have buildings with more than two storeys in Stoneford, Mr. Deeley. Don’t look down. Just put one foot in front of the other, step on, and hold onto the handrail. I’ll be right behind you.”
Mr. Deeley hesitated, and after several false starts, managed to coordinate his feet with the moving stairs.
“Stand on the right,” Charlie added.
“Where does this wind come from? It is impossible!”
“It’s caused by the trains in the tunnels,” Charlie replied. “They fit very tightly, and as they move forward they push the air in front of them.”
Riding down the escalator, just behind Mr. Deeley, Charlie recalled her earliest memories of the Underground, visiting Nana Betty with her parents. There was a remembrance, tucked away in her mind, of her three-year-old self’s wonder at the escalator, and that very same wind blowing up from below, and the sound the train made when it was still in its tunnel but approaching the station, a throaty kind of muffled roar.
“All right?” she checked.
“Yes. It is quite wondrous, Mrs. Collins.”
He was staring at the line of people riding the up escalator, opposite. Suddenly, Charlie caught a shadow of sadness on his face.
“What is it, Mr. Deeley?”
“I was in mind of a journey I once undertook, Mrs. Collins, from Stoneford to Southampton. It was twenty miles there, and twenty miles back again, and when I returned, the housemaids and the cook, the butler, and my friend Mr. Rankin, the gardener, were all so eager to hear of my adventures. They savoured every last detail, at supper, and at breakfast the following morning. They spoke to me of nothing else for days.”
He looked back at Charlie.
“It is indeed strange,” he said, “to realize that all of the people I grew to know, and to love, have been dead for nearly two hundred years. I thought of them just now. I thought of what tales I would share with them, of all of my travels….”
“You have no one left to tell,” Charlie said, softly. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Deeley. I didn’t even think of that.”
“You must accept none of the blame. It was my decision to undertake the journey from my time to yours. And this has been, without a doubt, the most exciting adventure of my life. But I confess, Mrs. Collins, I do, upon occasion, feel a trifle misplaced, and caught very much out of my time.”
They had reached the bottom of the moving steps.
“Step off quickly, and don’t look down,” Charlie advised. “There you are. Your first escalator. And next, the fabulous Northern Line. The worm possessed.”
Chapter Five
“This station,” Mr. Deeley said, as their train arrived at Balham, “was opened on December 6th, 1926, as part of the Morden extension of the City and South London Railway, which later became known as the Northern Line.”
In the half hour that had elapsed since they’d ridden the down escalator at Waterloo, Mr. Deeley had managed to make himself something of an expert on the Underground. He’d accomplished this by once again referring to Charlie’s mobile, and making use of the excellent free Wi-Fi that was provided at each station.
“Wikipedia is your friend,” Charlie mused.
“We are indeed fortunate to be occupying the third carriage of this train. We should disembark by way of Door Three, which will align us almost perfectly with the Way Out.”
“I’m going to put you in charge of our travels next time we’re in London,” Charlie said, following Mr. Deeley as he led her off the train, and onto the platform and through the short passageway to
the escalator landing.
“There are forty-eight steps up to the booking hall,” Mr. Deeley continued, “in a configuration of sixteen, then sixteen, and then another sixteen.”
He looked up at the steps.
“We shall take the escalator,” he decided.
He stepped onto the moving stairs, barely looking at his feet.
At the top, in the ticket hall, Mr. Deeley paused in front of a small plaque fixed to the wall, above a row of seats, and read aloud what was written there.
“‘In remembrance of the civilians and London Transport staff who were killed at this station during the Blitz on the night of 14 October 1940.’”
“I can tell you what that is before you look it up,” Charlie said, taking her phone back and switching it off before stowing it safely in her bag. “It’s a memorial to something that happened during the war. London was heavily bombed and a lot of people only felt safe if they slept in the Underground. So this station was used as a shelter. On that night, October the 14th, a bomb fell on the High Road outside, and it broke through to one of the platform tunnels downstairs. It shattered the mains and the sewers and the tunnel filled up with earth and water and it killed nearly seventy people. They’ve never been completely sure about the exact total.”
“You know much about this occurrence.”
“Nana Betty used to tell me stories about it. She was a young woman in 1940. But she wouldn’t go down in the tube. She always hated it, and even refused to use it when it was safe, after the war ended.”
“It is strange,” said Mr. Deeley, “that she should have felt that way. I find this Underground a compelling fascination. And I would have thought that the shelter in her back garden was far less accommodating. At the very least, the Underground station would have been warm and dry.”
Charlie smiled, a little impishly.
“On the other hand, that Anderson shelter’s where my mum was conceived. Or so Nana Betty always claimed.”
“I would not ever have thought of such a place as being conducive to romance,” Mr. Deeley replied, also with humour, and a tiny hint of naughtiness. “Perhaps you might show it to me…?”
