by C. R. Berry
“Definitely!”
Jennifer could hear the smile in Ferro’s voice. “Great. Are you free tonight?”
She remembered her drinks plans with Adam, but they weren’t till eight. “I have a bit of time tonight, yeah. Meeting a friend at eight.”
“Okay. Do you want to come to mine? I have your number now, I can text you my address.”
She remembered that he lived in Norton Hill, which if memory served was only about half an hour from Reading. “Sure. I finish work at half five, so I’ll come straight from here. Should take about half an hour, depending where you are in Norton Hill – and traffic.”
“Wonderful. See you then.”
“Cool. Bye!”
Jennifer glanced at the clock on her phone as she hung up. Time was getting on – she needed to get back to the office or else face the wrath of her overlords, ahem, employers.
Heading back, she felt her phone buzz. It was Ferro.
12 Cavalier Road, Norton Hill, DP13 7RS. See you later.
She got back to the office with three minutes to spare – just enough to brew herself a coffee.
As soon as she’d sat down at her desk, Hitler approached her.
“Jennifer, I need you to proofread this document,” she said, laying a slim bundle of papers on the desk. “It is a business purchase agreement. Our client is a small technology company called Cyberware, which is being bought out by Million Eyes.”
Of course it was. Million Eyes were basically taking over the world, absorbing every competitor – big and small – into their vast empire.
“It’s all finalised,” said Hitler. “I just need a second pair of eyes on it before our client signs it. Please try and be more thorough than you were last time.”
Because of one missing comma Jennifer failed to notice last week. The condescending cow.
Alison Fawke shot Jennifer an awkward glance. Hitler’s comment was – of course – in earshot of everyone in the open-plan office. Jennifer smiled uneasily, “Yes, will do.”
“And before you do that, tidy up your desk. You might choose to live in a pigsty, but I don’t want you turning our office into one.”
Wow. Jennifer’s desk had three piles of papers, neatly stacked, one client file, a textbook, a document she was working on earlier and yesterday’s mug, which she hadn’t yet taken to the kitchen. If this was a pigsty, Hitler would’ve had a heart attack at the sight of Jennifer’s bedroom.
“Yes, sorry, I’ll do that,” said Jennifer, feeling her cheeks redden. The temptation to throw coffee in Hitler’s face was huge. She resisted.
“Good. And don’t dawdle. I want to get that agreement over to the client in an hour for signing.” Hitler strutted back to her OCD-immaculate office.
The money’s good, the money’s good, the money’s good, Jennifer reminded herself throughout the afternoon.
At half five Jennifer was out the door, pretending not to hear Hitler’s disapproving tut as she breezed past her. She got in the car and popped Ferro’s postcode into Google Maps. She wasn’t worrying about dinner; she’d just grab something at the pub with Adam.
She got stuck in the usual traffic before snailing behind a tractor for five minutes thinking, these really should be banned from being on the roads during rush hour, or maybe just banned full stop. At 6.16pm she pulled into Cavalier Road. Ferro’s house was about three hundred yards up. She saw only one car on his large driveway and space for her to park next to or behind it, but his wife and kids could’ve had cars (she wasn’t sure how old Ferro was, but presumed his kids were grown-up), so Jennifer just parked on the road.
She took in the house as she walked up the driveway. A decent size, detached and Victorian – bay windows, patterned bricks, dormers and a gable-roofed porch. Nice. She wasn’t really sure what she was expecting, but somehow it seemed to fit.
She knocked on the smartly painted front door.
“Hello, Jennifer,” said Ferro as he opened the door, his unfetching cardigan and old man slippers making him look more grandfatherly than normal.
“Hi,” she replied. “You alright?”
He nodded and welcomed her inside. She took off her shoes in the large hallway, noting only one pair of shoes on the mat and one coat hanging on the coat rack.
His wife and kids must’ve been out.
Ferro showed her into the lounge. It all seemed fairly pleasant and normal-looking. Floral wallpaper a bit dated. Sofas a bit worn. The room was dotted with photos of Ferro and his family. He had a boy and a girl, both teenagers. The boy looked about sixteen, seventeen, the girl a bit younger.
The room was pretty tidy apart from the papers, folders and a stationery box covering the coffee table, plus a dictation machine on top of one of the piles. Ferro motioned for her to take a seat and offered her a cup of tea or coffee. She said no. He disappeared into the kitchen for a minute to pour himself one. She suspected it was peppermint again when he came back in and she glimpsed the yellowy liquid in his cup. Jennifer hated herbal teas. English breakfast all the way.
Ferro sat in the armchair close to the coffee table so he could handle the papers.
“Your wife and kids not in?” said Jennifer.
“No,” said Ferro, a tad sharply.
She couldn’t help herself – she wanted to know where they were. “Oh, okay. What are they up to?”
Ferro raised an eyebrow. “Er – that’s not really any of your business.”
Shit – she’d touched a nerve. “God, I’m sorry, you’re right. It’s none of my business. Sorry for prying.” Then, realising what she’d said, “And sorry for saying ‘God’.”
Ferro sighed, a faint smile appearing and disappearing on his lips. With a long blink and a shake of the head he said, “No. I’m sorry,” then admitting, to Jennifer’s surprise, “My wife is divorcing me. She and the kids have moved out. It’s still a little raw at the moment. I don’t mean to take it out on you.”
Jennifer could see the pain in his eyes as he said it. “Honestly, don’t mention it. I… I’m sorry about your family.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. His honesty had caught her off-guard.
“It’s my fault,” said Ferro. “Too busy chasing these bloody time travellers.”
It was the way he said it. It told Jennifer he didn’t actually want to be chasing them. Rather, he felt he had no choice. And from the sounds of it, he was regretting ever finding out what he had.
“Maybe when you prove that these time travellers are real, they’ll come round.” Jennifer was just trying to make him feel better, but probably shouldn’t have used the word when. She wasn’t quite there yet.
“I don’t think so,” Ferro murmured sadly, staring off into space. A moment later, he shook his head like he was flicking away the pain and said, “Anyway. Princess Diana. Let’s talk about her.”
Jennifer smiled. “Yes, let’s.”
“So on Monday I met a woman called Sophie Rousseau who claims to have seen someone disposing a white Fiat Uno in the woods on the night Diana was killed. I made a recording of our conversation, as I mentioned. Do you want me to play it?”
“Absolutely.”
Ferro pressed play on the dictation machine on the coffee table.
Jennifer listened to him and a woman he identified at the start as Sophie Rousseau, clearly French from the sound of her accent, talking about the night of Princess Diana’s death. Sophie was walking her dog in the woods in a town called Lagny-en-Brie at about 1.30am and saw a heavily built man in a dark suit standing next to a white Fiat Uno. He was on the phone to a woman he kept calling ‘ma’am’, and Sophie remembered him saying “the book is destroyed” and “can no longer harm us.”
After Diana’s death, forensics found white paint scratches on her Mercedes and bits of broken tail light on the road near the crash site. They determined that the paint and the tail light had come from a Fiat Uno, but it was never traced and the driver never came forward. Sophie said that the Uno she saw had black scratches on its passen
ger side and a broken tail light, which was why she believed it to be the one involved in the crash, the one that many people thought was used to block the road in front of Diana’s Mercedes, causing it to swerve and crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel.
Sophie said that after his phone call, the man doused the car in some kind of strange liquid and torched it. Apparently the fire was green, like nothing she’d seen before, and appeared to dissolve the car until there was nothing left. She then watched him take a pill she thought was medication, but instead caused him to disappear right in front of her in a blinding but fleeting burst of light.
Ferro asked why Sophie didn’t come forward at the time. She said it wasn’t until she heard about the involvement of a white Fiat Uno in Diana’s crash that she realised the implications of what she’d seen, and that she was too scared of going to the authorities because of all the people saying that MI5 or the Royal Family had orchestrated Diana’s murder. She didn’t want to become a target. When she read Ferro’s blog, she realised how huge the conspiracy really was and decided it was high time she talked to someone.
Sophie certainly didn’t sound like she was lying. That said, many liars and loons didn’t.
“So there you have it,” said Ferro after the recording ended. “Thoughts?”
Jennifer blew a sigh, unsure how to respond. “I… I don’t really know, to be honest. It sounds just crazy.”
“Yes. It does.” He handed her a folder. “Here. These are the materials I showed you at the pub, in case you want to have another look. The copies of Sir Lionel Frensham’s journal are in there too.”
Jennifer leafed through them, turning first to Frensham’s journal, which she’d not had time to look at properly that night she met Ferro on the train. She read Frensham’s description of Edward IV’s bloody confrontation with a man after a ‘book’, the pot of red pills Frensham found in the man’s hand, the mysterious package Frensham delivered to Edward V, the older Prince in the Tower, a year later. Then she reread Purkis’s deathbed confession, Simon of Stonebury’s description of the book-seeking plague doctor rumour, and Edith Starkey’s elaboration on the rumour and description of the ‘Godfrey letter’, which revealed the name of the book as The History of Computer-Aided Timetabling for Railway Systems by Jeremy Jennings – a book that didn’t exist when Starkey was writing about it. It was the piece of evidence that had stumped Jennifer more than anything else.
Jennifer had to admit, Ferro was onto something here. These weren’t just coincidences, couldn’t be. There were just too many of them. A collection of hoaxes? That was unlikely too. It would require a bunch of different people, centuries apart, with no obvious connection to each other, to have concocted the same story.
She couldn’t believe she was actually thinking this, but she was – time travel was starting to look more plausible.
“Did you find out anything more about this book – The History of Computer-Aided Timetabling for Railway Systems?” Jennifer asked.
Ferro perched on the edge of his chair and leaned forwards, opening the stationery box that was on the opposite side of the coffee table. He lifted out a stack of papers scrawled with lists of words, letters and numbers along with diagrams trying to link them all together – he’d been doing some code-breaking, it looked like. Underneath was a small hardbound book with a gold-tooled title, the only thing on the green cloth cover. Ferro handed it to Jennifer.
There it was. The most boring-looking-and-sounding book she’d ever seen. Jennifer opened it, scanned the opening pages, in particular the publication information on the copyright page.
Published in Great Britain in 1995 by Bradley & May.
First edition.
© Jeremy Jennings 1995.
“It’s an interesting read,” said Ferro.
Jennifer looked up, disbelieving eyebrows prodding her forehead. Ferro had a slight smirk.
“I’m joking,” he said. “It’s the dullest book I’ve ever read. As it sounds, it’s everything nobody wanted to know about the development of computer-aided timetabling for railways, written with all the personality of a houseplant.”
Jennifer chuckled. She continued flicking through it. The chapters were long, the paragraphs thick, the words tiny. “If this really is the book these time travellers have been chasing, do you think they’re just worried about people in the past having information about the future? About railways and computers, things that don’t exist yet?”
“I don’t know. But would they really go so far as to kill people, including important historical figures, over a book about railways and computers? Plus, in the 1100s everybody in England spoke Old English or Norman French or Latin. Nobody then would understand a word of something written in Modern English. By the 1400s they were speaking Middle English so they might be able to make out some of it, but they’re not going to have a clue what a computer or a train is.”
“Mmmm. You’re right. And if it’s to do with future tech, how does Princess Diana factor in? She was killed after the book came out.”
“Exactly. Wouldn’t make sense. I wonder if there’s more to this book than we realise.”
Jennifer glanced at Ferro’s attempts at code-breaking. “I take it you’ve been looking for secret messages in the text?”
Ferro sipped his tea. “I have, but I’ve not found any. Not that I’m an expert, mind you. I bought another copy of the book – last one left on Ebay – and sent it off to a friend of mine who’s a cryptographer. If anyone can crack its code – if there is one – she can.”
Jennifer shut the book. “What about the author, Jeremy Jennings? Have you looked into him?”
“One of the first things I did. But he’s dead. And there’s very little information about him on the internet.”
“The publisher, Bradley & May?”
“Yep. Nothing on them either, only that they closed down in 1999. I also looked into Edith Starkey, since Secrets of the Great Pestilence is currently the only source I have linking the time travellers to Jeremy Jennings’ book. I literally can’t find anything on her. I don’t even know if “Edith Starkey” is her real name. No other books have been published under that name. And just like with Jennings’ book, the publishers of Secrets of the Great Pestilence no longer exist.”
“So you’re at a dead end.”
Ferro sighed. “Yes, sadly.”
“Still, there’s got to be a shit-ton of stuff on Princess Diana’s death out there. Maybe they’ll be some mention of this book?”
Ferro nodded, “That’s what I’m hoping for. I have a lot more to go through yet. I’m still looking for references to this package Frensham talks about in his journal. Next I have some books on Diana’s death to go through.”
Jennifer hesitated for a moment, wondering if she might regret what she was about to say. Fuck it, she decided. It wasn’t as if she had more important things going on in her life right now. “Is there anything I can do to, you know… help?”
Ferro’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Jennifer swallowed. “Really.”
Ferro stood up and walked over to the bay window. Hands behind his back, he stared out at the night-darkened street, deep in thought.
“There is, actually,” he said, turning round.
Oh God – what is it?
“You can say no.”
Will I want to say no? “What is it?”
“Well I’ve been thinking about going to this town – Lagny-en-Brie, near Paris – where Sophie Rousseau saw the man and the Fiat Uno. I thought I would go and do a little investigating, see if I can find some evidence of what happened there, maybe collect some specimens for testing. I also thought I’d knock on some doors in the area, see if anyone else knows anything. You could come with me… if you want.”
Jennifer thought about this for a moment. A jaunt to France to hunt for Princess Diana-murdering time travellers was not your everyday travel invitation.
“You know what – why not,” she said. “We can pretend we�
��re Mulder and Scully.” She thought immediately – which is apt because Scully’s the sceptic who has to rein in Mulder’s flights of fancy.
“Great,” said Ferro, smiling. “Well, money’s a bit tight right now so I won’t be able to book anything for a couple of weeks. But as soon as I’m in a position to, I’ll give you a call.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“And if you happen to change your mind in that time, that’s fine too. There’s no pressure. I just thought two heads might be better than one.”
“No worries.” Jennifer checked her watch – it was nearly twenty past seven. She was cutting it fine to meet Adam at eight. “Shit. I better get going or I’m gonna be late.” She stood up and got ready to leave.
“Yes, of course. You’re meeting a friend, aren’t you.” Ferro showed her out. “Thank you for coming round, Jennifer. And for… listening.”
“Don’t mention it,” Jennifer said, and did a fast walk to her car.
Robert Skinner sat in a tinted-windowed black Lexus opposite Gregory Ferro’s house, Ferro and Jennifer Larson’s conversations flowing crisply into his earpiece. As Larson prepared to leave, Skinner texted his wife, Karen. Think I might be late home tonight, babe. There’s a security incident I need to deal with.
It wasn’t a lie, but it may as well have been, since he knew Karen would be imagining him behind a computer, inputting and analysing data. She had no idea what his work for the Information Security Department actually entailed.
Karen texted back. Okay. I’ll save you some ravioli.
Thanks. Love you. Give the girls a kiss for me.
Larson made a hurried exit and Skinner rang his CEO, Erica Morgan. Normally she wouldn’t get involved in something like this, but as soon as Ferro started looking into Princess Diana, Miss Morgan decided to personally oversee the operation.
Skinner didn’t like this one bit. He was much happier dealing with the head of Information Security, Pete Navarro. And it wasn’t just that Miss Morgan was the CEO, or that she was uncompromising and quick to anger like many CEOs were. It was something else. In all the years Miss Morgan had worked for the company, nobody had learned anything about her, not really. And Skinner had always thought there was something empty about her – like you could stab a puppy in front of her and she wouldn’t bat an eyelid. She was probably a sociopath, although perhaps she needed to be, given her position. And maybe Skinner was just being a pussy.
