by Jason Ayres
“Right, well now that we’ve established that we all believe in time travel, let’s move on,” said Hannah. “I’ve got a killer to catch.”
“Lucky you,” said Kent. “I waited all those years for one to come along, then you get one in your first month on the job.”
“It’s hardly lucky is it?” said Hannah. “Three girls have died, remember?”
“He didn’t mean it like that,” said Kay.
“I know he didn’t,” said Hannah. “You always did speak without thinking first, Richard.
“Putting my size nines in it, Debs says,” replied Kent.
“As for you Kay, I want to thank you,” continued Hannah. “Were you aware that there is a reward for information leading to the killer’s arrest? I will see to it personally that if this all holds up, you will get it.”
Kay wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It felt a bit like taking blood money, profiting from Anna’s death in such a way, but she couldn’t deny the money would come in handy. During her long talk with Maddie on Christmas Eve, her daughter had told her how much debt she had already run up in her first term at university. The reward money would go some way to helping her out, as well as funding some plans Kay had of her own.
“Thank you,” she replied. “Now go and nail that fucker.”
“We will,” replied Hannah.
She was true to her word. As Kay watched the evening news on the BBC, with Maddie by her side, the news of McVie’s arrest was breaking.
As Maddie flicked through the special double edition of Radio Times, Kay relaxed with a feeling of a job well done. For the rest of the evening they watched Christmas movies, shared a bottle of Baileys, and scoffed their way through a whole tin of Celebrations.
Kay still hadn’t decided where she was going on her final trip the next day, but she didn’t really care anymore. She was just happy to be safely back at home with Maddie, secure in the knowledge that McVie was behind bars.
Chapter Twenty-Two
February 2019
Kay and Maddie lay side by side on sunbeds next to the swimming pool. It was February half-term and Kay had whisked Maddie away from Durham University for a much-needed week of winter sun at a hotel in Tenerife.
Kay loved going on holiday at this time of the year. Summer holidays were all well and good, but nothing could beat a good strong dose of warmth and vitamin D during a long English winter. Maddie was lapping it up, too, unlike the goths of Kay’s generation who had generally stayed out of the sun.
As Maddie streamed music from Spotify and read her Kindle, Kay thought about just how much her life had changed of late. It had been just seven weeks since Christmas and she certainly hadn’t been idle.
The day after Boxing Day she had seen the angel for the final time. She had decided to take the angel’s advice, forget the serious stuff, and go back and enjoy a special day from her past.
Accordingly, she found herself arriving back on the date she had chosen, March 4th 1993. She had chosen to go back to the date of her first gig, that amazing night she had enjoyed at the Equinox Club in Leicester Square seeing Saint Etienne.
The night was every bit as good as she remembered, and she made sure she soaked up every second of it. It wasn’t just the concert that was amazing, but also spending time with Angie and Becky, the two friends who had gone to the gig with her.
On her return, she again asked the angel about future crime-solving time travel opportunities. Reluctantly agreeing to consider it, the angel gave her a password to summon her one more time in case of an emergency, stressing not to waste it on anything trivial. She also declared that she would have a right of veto over anything Kay might be asking to do.
Kay was more than happy with that and had not even considered calling the angel since. She was keeping that offer firmly under lock and key until it was absolutely needed.
McVie was charged and on the advice of his solicitor decided to plead guilty. It was pointless doing anything else. The forensic evidence the police made his conviction 100% certain. He had no defence whatsoever and in January was jailed for life.
Subsequently, Kay received the £25,000 reward money. At first she felt wrong taking it, considering that Anna had had to lose her life in order for her to receive it. But Kent convinced her she was entitled to it after all she had been through, taking McVie’s knife in place of Anna in Universe 2.0. And Anna would have died anyway, so it was hardly blood money.
The first thing she did when the money came through was to get her teeth fixed up. That wasn’t cheap – with eight teeth missing, it ran to thousands but it was worth it.
She joined a gym, left the booze and fags behind for good, and started eating healthily. The change in her appearance in just a few short weeks was astounding.
She signed up for an Open University course in journalism, keen to revive her earlier travel and writing plans.
She also decided to keep her job at the shop for the time being, keen to save as much money as possible which wasn’t difficult now she was rent- and mortgage-free. Now she had her new teeth she was even allowed back on the tills again.
Alan agreed to a quickie divorce – he didn’t have much choice – and that was progressing nicely. She expected to have her decree absolute by the end of February.
As for Kent, his life was moving forward, too. Craig announced in the New Year that he was planning to sell the lease on the pub. Shortly afterwards, Kent announced that he and Debs were going to buy it, and run it as a combined pub and restaurant.
With a full smile and confidence restored, Kay plucked up the courage to seek out Robert, the man she had met on her Valentine’s night out in London the previous year. Trying not to act too much like a stalker, she found out where he lived and followed him to Tesco’s one day, where she ‘accidentally’ bumped into him in the bakery section.
Striking up a conversation, they got on just as well as before. When he suggested going for a coffee, she eagerly accepted. That was in late-January. By Valentine’s Day they were dating, enjoying a lovely meal out at a country pub just outside Oxford.
During the meal he asked her if she wanted to come to the Monaco Grand Prix with him in May. As part of his job, he got to attend three or four Grand Prixs a year, and for Kay, a lifelong fan, this was a dream come true. She had only been to a Grand Prix once before, at Silverstone as a kid, when her dad had taken her to see Nigel Mansell win.
Two days after Valentine’s Day, she and Maddie had flown out to Tenerife, where they had spent a lazy week basking in the sun. It was the last day of the holiday now, and Kay felt relaxed, happy and ready to get on with her life.
She was unrecognisable from the person she had been less than two months ago. During the holiday, she had plenty of admiring glances from the men by the pool, and more than a few trying to chat her up in the evenings.
All of these offers she had rebuffed. She had high hopes for her future relationship prospects with Robert, and certainly wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardise them.
Things were looking up for Maddie, too. She had met a lovely young man from Newcastle while they were away, and they had arranged to meet up when she got back to Durham. Kay was pleased to discover that he seemed nothing like Glen or any of the other idiots she had endured. He reminded her more of the younger Kent.
It was fair to say that her experience with the angel had changed her life for the better. Kay felt proud of what she had achieved, even if it had been with the help of this mysterious divine intervention.
A little kick-start had been all she needed, just a helping hand to pick her up off the floor and give her the energy to dust herself down and start again. She knew she could easily have squandered the gift she had been given but she hadn’t. She had used it wisely.
Now she felt like she could achieve anything. She may have been forty-three, but as far as she was concerned, she was as good as twenty-three again. There was still time to do everything she had wanted to do then. This time she would g
et it right.
Observing her from a sunbed on the other side of the pool, the angel smiled, pleased at another job well done. He was no longer projecting himself in her younger image but was now here in his true form and his real body, that of a man in late-middle age.
The angel never gave away anything about his true identity to the people he helped. It amused him to appear as an all-powerful being, appealing to his egotistical nature.
In truth, he was a mere mortal just like them, but coming from the future, with several decades of advanced technology available to him, it wasn’t difficult to make himself appear omnipotent.
He hadn’t been entirely honest about the nature of the alternate universes Kay had visited. Long a believer in the multiverse theory, he had proven without doubt that alternate worlds could exist as a result of his earlier time travel experiments. He now knew how to create copies of the existing universe, but he certainly didn’t have the power to delete them, nor would he want to.
After years of further experiments, he had now discovered how to travel not only between universes, but to different points in time within them as well, hence his claim that he could be in any place at any time.
His work with Kay, Kent and the others was merely part of these experiments. His latest research was into the effects of transferring consciousness from an individual in one universe into another. Advanced developments in the field of measuring electrical activity in the brain also gave him a degree of insight into their thoughts.
By telling them the universe was merely a temporary copy, his intention was to allow them to act freely, unconstrained by the usual rules that governed people’s behaviour. He wanted to see what people would do, given free rein.
Then he could study the effects their trips back in time had, not only on their own lives, but also on the world as a whole. How different might their lives be, and what ripples would flow out from the changes his subjects made?
Kay had been a fascinating subject. Unknown to her, all the different versions of herself she had created in the other universes were alive and well, with the exception of the one that McVie had killed. If she had known this, perhaps it would have been some consolation to her to know that in that universe, Anna was alive and well.
Most of the other Kays were faring better. One effect of returning the original Kay’s consciousness to the first universe meant that her copies had only vague memories of what they had done the previous day, and why. Even so, in most cases they adapted to their altered circumstances well.
The first Kay, who had gone to Finland, continued her travels through Europe and never went back to Alan.
The Kay who had gone to the summer ball stayed with Kent, went to university and got her degree, carving out a successful presenting career with the BBC, just as she had hoped. She and Kent were married with three children.
The Kay who had stolen Alan’s money on Valentine’s Day had a life very similar to the original Kay. She had kept the house and divorced him several months earlier than before.
For the Kay who had travelled to Christmas Day as a child and had been to see Saint Etienne in 1993, there were no changes, either to her timeline or the world at large. She had more or less done on those days exactly what she had done first time around.
None of this was known to this version of Kay, sunning herself by the pool, and nor did it matter. She was happy and her future was secure. She couldn’t ask for any more than that.
The End
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Also by Jason Ayres:
Midlife Crisis
If you were offered the chance to live six days of your life over again, which would you choose?
Richard Kent is middle-aged, bored and miserable. His weight has ballooned to eighteen stone, giving him high blood pressure and gout. His wife nags him, his kids ignore him, and his boss thinks he’s a dinosaur. Everything from television to pop music seems like it was so much better in the past.
When redundancy looms, a leap off the roof of a car park beckons. But then a familiar face from his own past appears and offers him the chance to go back. A trip back to 1984 in the body of his seven-year-old self is just the beginning of a roller coaster journey through his own life.
This novel is the first in a new series of spin-offs set in the same universe as the author’s Time Bubble series. It can be enjoyed without the need to have read the earlier stories.
UK Link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01GOZRI9U/
US Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GOZRI9U/
My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday
What would life be like if you went to bed on Sunday nights and woke up on Saturday mornings? That is what every day is like for Thomas Scott, a man who begins his life on his deathbed before travelling back through his life one day at a time.
Set in Oxford during the early 21st and late-20th centuries, this original concept for a time travel novel follows Thomas on his journey back through a life uniquely lived in reverse.
Taking place in the same universe as the author’s Time Bubble series, it is a stand-alone story which can be enjoyed with or without having read the earlier books.
UK Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00UDHAD0M
US Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UDHAD0M
The Time Bubble
Charlie and Josh’s interests were the same as most other teenagers: drinking, parties and girls. That was until the day they discovered the Time Bubble.
It starts as a bit of fun, jumping a few seconds into the future. Soon things take a more serious turn as the leaps in time increase in duration. When a teenage girl goes missing, and the police become involved, suspicion falls on Charlie. How can he explain where she is? Will anyone believe him?
Set in a small market town in Southern England in the early 21st century, this light-hearted time travel novel has plenty to delight readers of all ages.
This novel is the first part of a trilogy which continues with Global Cooling and concludes with Man Out Of Time.
UK Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00L3K1B8G
US Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L3K1B8G
Global Cooling
In 2029, Earth is facing a major climate catastrophe. An asteroid strike blankets the globe in dust and ash, blocking out the sunlight. Soon temperatures begin to fall.
As weather conditions worsen, the residents of a small market town in Southern England must make a decision – flee south or wait for the worst to pass. With power supplies failing and food scarce, survival is at stake as those with darker motives seek to take advantage of the situation.
For those heading south, can the discovery of a new Time Bubble provide a way out?
Global Cooling is the second part of a trilogy which began with The Time Bubble. Set a decade after the main events of the first book, this story picks up the lives of the main characters as they reach their late-twenties.
The trilogy concludes with the final volume, Man Out Of Time.
UK Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00OTTETV4
US Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OTTETV4
Man Out Of Time
What would you do if you found yourself cast 22 years into the future? Into a world where your home is no longer your home and you’ve been declared legally dead?
This is the situation that Daniel Fisher finds himself in at the beginning of this novel. Stranded in the future, in a place where his outdated currency is worthless, things go from bad to worse for Dan very quickly. Before long he finds himself incarcerated in a secure psychiatric unit, his hopes of ever re
turning to the past looking bleak.
Elsewhere, Josh has unlocked the secrets of the time bubbles, and can now freely travel in time. He returns to the scene of past encounters, as well as travelling to the future to join Peter on his adventures through time. But has he been careful enough to prevent others from discovering his secrets?
This book concludes The Time Bubble trilogy, tying up all of the loose ends from the first two books, as well as linking in to the spin-off novel, My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday.
UK Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B013A0ZN7Q
US Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013A0ZN7Q
About the author
Jason Ayres lives in the market town of Bicester, near Oxford, with his wife and two young sons.
Following a lengthy career in market research, he turned his hand to writing whilst bringing up his children. This included the popular “Stay At Home Dad” column in the Oxford Mail.
Encouraged by this success, he moved on to writing time travel novels, releasing The Time Bubble in the summer of 2014. This original and well-received story has since spawned a host of spin-offs and sequels.
Want to know more about Jason?
Find him on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/AusterityDad
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