Trace Memory t-5

by David Llewellyn

  'It was yesterday,' said Michael.

  Cromwell paused, looking Michael in the eye, and then burst into laughter.

  'Yesterday?' he said. 'Oh yes, I suppose it feels like yesterday, and perhaps for you it was yesterday, but for us? Oh, Michael… I wish there were a single one of us who could understand what has happened to you. It's been quite a curious few years, on and off. I really thought we'd seen the last of you in '67, but here you are…'

  'Sixty-seven?' said Michael. 'They keep mentioning 1967 but I don't know what they're talking about.'

  'No,' said Cromwell, 'I don't suppose you would. To us everything has been moving in a straight line, but for you…' He shook his head and raised his hands in resignation. 'For you it's like a Chinese puzzle, is it not? Popping up, here and there: 1967, your arrest, the training hospital a few years back. Can you even remember half of these things? I doubt it. Oh, Michael, if only we could have had the chance to study you. If only we'd known, those first few days after the explosion. If only we'd had the laws we have nowadays. It was much harder to simply have someone disappear off the streets in '53.'

  Cromwell laughed, and once again mopped his brow, chuckling softly.

  'So long ago now,' he said. 'For me, at least. You, on the other hand, haven't aged a bit. It must seem like days, to you. There was a boy out there, on reception, probably about your age. Funny boy. Sounded like he was from our side of the bridge, somewhere up in the valleys, I reckon. Stuttered and spluttered his way around asking me if I'd like a cup of tea. Funny to think he's young enough to be your grandson, isn't it?'

  Cromwell looked across at the mirror, and ran one hand over his bald head. Michael followed his gaze. It was only now he could appreciate just what Cromwell was talking about. The last time they had met, there had been no more than ten or fifteen years between them, but now Cromwell was a very old man, and Michael was still little more than a boy.

  'But time is the decider of every man's fate, is it not?' said Cromwell. 'Some of us die young, and some of us live to be very old men with weak bladders and knees that crack when we get up too quickly. Do you know how you can end this, Michael?'

  And now Cromwell turned from his own reflection to look at Michael directly.

  'How?' asked Michael.

  'The only way,' said Cromwell, 'that this will ever end is when you die.'

  'No,' said Michael, looking down to the floor, wishing he could raise his hands to cover his face. 'No, that's just another lie. Like when you came to the hospital, and you said you were from the Union… That's just another lie.'

  Cromwell shook his head. 'I'm afraid it isn't, Michael. They want you, you know.'

  'Who? Who wants me?'

  'Somebody later told me they are called the Vondrax. Strangest things. Some of the victims bled to death, haemorrhaging on a massive scale. Others were burnt to cinders. The sightings, the records, '67… We spent so many years piecing it together for our report, and that's when we came to the conclusion. They're after you. You're the only one who can end this.'

  'No,' said Michael. 'How can I end this? What am I supposed to do?'

  Cromwell was staring at him gravely when they both heard the alarm.

  'Ah,' said Cromwell, 'here they are. As I thought.'

  'Who?' asked Michael.

  'The Vondrax,' Cromwell replied. 'It was only a matter of time.'

  The door to the interview room opened, and two of the armed guards came in.

  'Mr Cromwell, Miss Stanley has asked that you stay here with our visitor. It appears we have a Code 200 situation on one of the lower floors.'

  'Men in bowler hats, no doubt,' said Cromwell. He seemed unnervingly at ease, as if he had experienced this too many times before.

  'Y-yes, sir,' said one of the guards. 'How did you know?'

  'Ask our young friend, here,' said Cromwell, smiling broadly. 'He is an old friend of theirs.'

  The guards looked from Cromwell to Michael and back again.

  'I didn't mean literally,' said Cromwell. 'It was a figure of speech.'

  The guards left the room and the door closed. Michael pulled against his restraints, but it was no good.

  'Trying to escape?' said Cromwell. 'There really is no need, you know. You're always best at escaping when you aren't even trying.'

  'But we need to get out of here!'

  'Me, perhaps, yes,' said Cromwell. 'There's every chance I won't be getting out of this one in any fighting condition, but you… You're what they call a dead cert.'

  'What do you mean?'

  Cromwell didn't answer him, he simply looked at his watch. Somewhere in the building there was an explosion. Even inside a room that was apparently soundproof, it could be heard, and more than heard — it could be felt. 'Here they come,' said Cromwell. 'Like children of the cosmos, I've always felt. So much chaos, so much destruction, so much pointless cruelty, and all they want is their ball back.'

  'You're talking in riddles!' shouted Michael. 'Get me out of this chair. You're insane!'

  'Oh no,' said Cromwell. 'After fifty odd years of this I am finally quite sane. There's nothing like knowing the future, or in this case the past, to put your mind at ease.'

  He looked at Michael, his expression suddenly warm and compassionate, filled with feeling.

  'I never did apologise for what we did to you,' he said, smiling softly. 'I never said sorry.'

  He closed his eyes serenely, as if he were listening to some soothing piano sonata and, as he did so, the mirror in the wall shattered, sending shards of two-way glass tumbling to the ground.

  'They're getting closer,' said Cromwell, his eyes still shut, his expression beatific. 'They don't like mirrors.'

  The sound of another explosion, louder now that the two-way mirror was broken, and Michael could see through into the darkened, adjoining room. He could hear people screaming, somewhere beyond the observation room, and in the darkness he saw moving, shadowy forms.

  'Please,' said Michael, 'just get me out of this chair. We need to get out of here, now.

  'You don't,' said Cromwell. '

  You'll be just fine.'

  The shapes in the darkness were becoming steadily more visible as each one came into the light from the interrogation room. They looked like men, at first, but then they always did. As each one was illuminated, an identical face was revealed, that same, grey-skinned sneering face, its eyes hidden behind round, black sunglasses, the leering mouth opening to reveal sharply pointed teeth.

  'The Traveller…' they said as one.

  Cromwell opened his eyes, and looked through the broken mirror as the Vondrax drew nearer. All at once they stopped, each of them breathing heavily, a foul hissing that emanated from their throats, their talon-like fingers wrapped around the jagged, gaping wound in the wall where the mirror had been, poised to enter the interrogation room.

  Cromwell turned to face Michael and saw nothing but an empty chair.

  'Clever boy,' he said, laughing to himself.

  He turned back to face the shattered mirror, and looked straight into the eyes of the Vondrax.

  ELEVEN

  The opening chords of T-Rex's '20th Century Boy' blasted into his ears as Jack Harkness walked down Carnaby Street on a late summer's morning in 1967. Never mind that the song would not be recorded for another six years, or that the device on which he was listening to it, the C-Fish X20, would not be invented for another six decades. Anachronisms weren't important to Jack, and the earphones were practically invisible so it wasn't as if anyone might notice. What mattered was that the song seemed right.

  The C-Fish, a portable music player, had, along with the contents of his bag, been deposited in a locker at King's Cross by Jack himself a long time and many lives ago, back in the days when time was no barrier. He'd thought that both might come in handy one day, and he was right.

  Looking around at the assorted mods and hippies — girls in fluorescent miniskirts, Union Flag-patterned waistcoats and baker-boy caps; men in flar
ed jeans and paisley shirts made of cheesecloth — it struck Jack that immortality, rather than rendering life predictable, often made it even more surprising. A life stretched out for more than a century made changes that had happened quite gradually to the casual observer, seem sudden and revolutionary.

  Only a few years ago, on his last visit, he had walked down this street to find it populated by austere tailors and nattily dressed jazz musicians looking for just the right threads. Now it was an explosion of garish, psychedelic colour, with music blaring from the open doors of almost every shop.

  He wasn't simply there as a tourist or even an observer, however. Jack had a purpose that morning. There were questions to be answered. Somebody in London had been asking questions about Jack Harkness, and Jack was going to find out who.

  He'd been in the city little more than three hours, but already he could sense that people were on to him. A car had tailed him across much of the city, a black Rover P6, driven by a man in a grey cap. Amateurs, Jack had thought. Whoever they were, travelling incognito was clearly not their forte. Still, for now he was in the clear. The streets of Soho were a good place to lose anyone who might be following you; a labyrinthine network of interconnecting thoroughfares and alleyways boxed in by the busy, traffic congested arteries of Shaftsbury Avenue, Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road. Here was a village within the city; a chaotic heart, beating to a syncopated rhythm, in the very centre of the metropolis.

  His destination was a restaurant on Golden Square called Houghton's. In the vibrant, noisy kaleidoscope of Soho, it was an oasis of gentlemanly calm, a throwback to a bygone era. It was also the place where he would meet Hugo.

  Hugo Faulkner was the third son of Baron Faulkner of Darrington, and was every bit the third son of a peer of the realm. While his older brothers had enjoyed illustrious military careers and were now major players in the City, Hugo was something of a black sheep; the decadent man about town, renowned for his lavish parties and almost bohemian lifestyle. He traded in antiquities and fine art, an almost respectable profession to any family except the Faulkners, who measured a man's worth in medals.

  The restaurant itself had the feeling of an Edwardian time capsule: burgundy velvet and real Tiffany lampshades; a fog of cigar smoke clouding the ceiling, and a soundtrack of clinking cutlery and bullish voices. It was jarring to Jack, who had eaten in such places when they were the norm, rather than the exception, as if he had inadvertently stumbled into his own past. On his arrival at the restaurant, he was taken by the maître d' to a table in the far corner, where Hugo Faulkner was already waiting for him.

  Jack was surprised by his appearance. The man's reputation had suggested something far less dapper. He'd expected long hair, a beard perhaps, and appropriated ethnic clothing, but was greeted instead by a very tall young man with foppish blond hair, dressed in a pinstripe suit and pink tie.

  'Mr Faulkner?' said Jack.

  Hugo stood, holding out his hand. 'Hugo, please. You must be Mr Williamson?'

  'Tim.'

  'Tim… Very pleased to meet you.' He shook Jack's hand with a weak grip and sat down again. 'Would you care for tea? Or coffee? Perhaps something stronger? They have a splendid 1948 Colheita, if you're a port-drinking man.'

  'I'm fine,' said Jack. He was already opening the bag that he had carried through Soho, and lifting a small wooden box from inside.

  Hugo's eyes lit up and he gasped with delight. 'Is that it?'

  Jack nodded.

  'This is it,' he said, placing the box on the table and opening it gently. Inside, wrapped in linen, was a thick, yellowing manuscript, dog-eared around its edges. The title page read:

  Cardenio — C A Spanish Comedie by Messrs William Shaksper and John Fletcher

  'My God…' said Hugo, reaching for it with both hands.

  'Easy, tiger,' said Jack. 'It's over three hundred and fifty years old. Here, I've brought gloves.'

  Jack handed him a pair of white cotton gloves. Hugo put them on and began delicately turning the pages.

  'Yes yes,' he said. 'The handwriting certainly resembles Shakespeare's. Some of it… here for example… that's clearly Fletcher's work, but this… this is Shakespeare.'

  'Impressed?' said Jack.

  'Yes, I'm very impressed. If it's not too vulgar for me to jump to the matter of remuneration, how much were you asking? For the manuscript?'

  'Three thousand,' said Jack, bluntly. 'Is that too much?'

  Hugo laughed. 'Oh, I shouldn't think so,' he said. 'I've never been able to understand why it is some people struggle for money when there's so much of the stuff floating about. You simply need to know how to catch it, most of the time. Like collecting butterflies. Would you mind if I write it as a cheque? I don't tend to carry much cash around. Dirtiest thing you can touch, cash. All those hands, all their germs. Makes you shudder just to think about it.'

  'A cheque's fine,' said Jack.

  'OK,' said Hugo, producing a Coutt's chequebook and a fountain pen. 'Who should I make this out to? Timothy Williamson?'

  'Yes,' said Jack, still forcing a smile.

  'Or perhaps Jack Harkness?' said Hugo, and Jack's smile faded.

  'What did you say?' he asked.

  'Really,' said Hugo, continuing as if he hadn't said a thing, 'this is a remarkable find. Scholars have been arguing over Cardenio for centuries, and we'd quite safely assumed it was lost for eternity. Why should a reasonably obscure work survive so many floods, fires, and bombs? Why, if it were not that notable a play, should posterity have saved it? And yet here it is. Remarkable.'

  'What did you say?' Jack asked again, more forcefully this time.

  'I said it's remarkable that the play should have survived. Although I'm particularly curious because I happen to know that there was a surviving copy of Cardenio in London as recently as 1765, but that it was stolen from the home of Thomas Sheridan by a man claiming, rather ludicrously, to be a time agent.

  A man by the name of Jack Harkness.'

  Jack paused. Had his moment's caution been premature? Was it just Hugo's idea of a joke to call him by that name?

  'Fancy that!' said Hugo. A time agent. Of all the things… Of course, Sheridan's words remained in private correspondence that I was lucky enough to come across a few years back. A secret auction in Bloomsbury. Sheridan thought this Harkness fellow to be a scoundrel and a liar, and so didn't believe a word the man said, but the fact remains, the manuscript was stolen.'

  'I see,' said Jack. 'Well, I don't know anything about that. I just bought this from a friend. More of an acquaintance, really'

  'I see,' said Hugo. 'Although, the strangest thing is that Sheridan's description of his visitor bears an uncanny resemblance to you. The description is quite exact, right down to the accent. Of course, he described it as "colonial", and not "American", as we might today.'

  Jack began to laugh. 'Hugo,' he said, 'you really are something else. Honestly, man, I can't keep up with that surreal English sense of humour of yours. Time Agents? 1765? Thomas Sheridan?'

  'Oh, please, Jack, cut the pantomime. I think we both know what I'm talking about. Or rather, you know a little more than I do, but I'm on the right track, aren't I? Did you think that you were the spider and I was the fly?'

  Jack scowled at him, and Hugo roared with laughter.

  'Oh, Jack, that really is quite endearing of you. You thought that you had come here to ensnare me? Oh, you may very well have been the one who contacted me, but didn't you think it was all just a little too easy?'

  'Who are you?' Jack asked, his tone harder now, any last traces of pretence having washed away.

  'I am who I say I am,' said Hugo. 'I'm Hugo Faulkner, son of Baron Faulkner of Darrington and celebrated bon vivant. I have the papers to prove it.' He slowly removed the white cotton gloves. 'The question is, Jack, who are you?'

  'Who do you work for?' asked Jack. He was breathing heavily, barely able to contain his anger. How had this situation turned so quickly? He had come here to ask t
he questions, not to be interrogated himself.

  'I am part of an organisation that asks questions,' said Hugo. 'And sometimes we provide answers. There is a cancer, Jack, at the heart of this country. Secrets and lies which threaten to destabilise everything. The days of Empire are behind us, and Britain is far from great. My organisation plans to capitalise on that. You might be interested in joining us, Jack.'

  'I'm not.'

  Hugo frowned, mockingly, with a childish pout.

  'Oh, really, Jack? So dismissive? With nary a second thought? That's a shame. I'd hoped you'd see things differently'

  'Well I really have to be going,' said Jack, flashing Hugo an empty smile. 'Maybe I'll see you around.'

  'Oh, I do hope so,' said Hugo. 'That would be wonderful'

  Jack stood but, as he turned to leave, Hugo reached out and grabbed him by the sleeve of his coat.

  'Jack… You forgot your gloves.'

  As he left the restaurant, his heart racing, Jack saw it again: the Rover P6, parked in the shadow of a tree in one corner of Golden Square. The driver was reading the Daily Telegraph, but the newspaper was lowered just an inch or two, and Jack saw the driver staring straight at him. Across the street from the parked car, two more men appeared to be having a conversation, but one of the men looked at him and held his gaze just a second longer than he should.

  Jack left the square and walked down Brewer Street. Looking back just once, he saw the man in the Rover signal to the two men who had been talking, and very suddenly he was being followed.

  Jack's pace quickened and he crossed the street to escape their field of view. As he reached the junction with Lexington Street, he ran into a small army of Hare Krishnas, perhaps fifty of them in all, dancing and singing and beating tambourines. He weaved his way through the sea of saffron-coloured robes and the din of the music, and joked to himself that this was one occasion when karma had come to the rescue.