The Timepiece and the Girl Who Went Astray: A thrilling new time travel adventure

by O. R. Simmonds

  Moss joined Will and the other officer by the kerb. The two of them led him into the station through the automatic glass doors. Another recent addition. The modern touches continued into the interior, where the decor belied the older exterior. The walls had a smooth plastered surface and were painted with a government-issue beige. The floors were covered with a matching cream linoleum flecked with brown and orange. Cheap and effective.

  The reception was a wide space that had wooden seats lined up along one wall to the right. To the left was a brown oak-effect desk with a large open-office area beyond.

  The room also had a faint but distinctive chemical smell. Will had smelled it before. It was unmistakably the public sector’s approved brand of cheap disinfectant, used in all hospitals, libraries and every other government-funded building he’d visited while in the UK. Likely bought in bulk and definitely applied liberally.

  An older, rotund police officer was sitting behind the desk on the left. He had a full head of hair, greying at the sides, and stubby fingers with nails chewed back so short that they were barely visible. Perhaps from boredom. Or a nervous disposition.

  He looked towards Will, DI Moss and the other officer as they entered. ‘You booking this one in yourself, Howard? This guy must be some kind of celebrity to be worthy of such special attention from you.’

  ‘He’s a suspect in the shooting in Spitalfields,’ Moss said.

  ‘Caught in the act, was he?’

  ‘Close enough,’ Moss offered. ‘He was at the scene when we arrived. He’s been acting very suspiciously as well, haven’t you, Mr. Wells?’

  ‘I’m telling you, I didn’t do this, but I saw –’

  ‘I think we’ll allow the evidence to do the talking if you don’t mind,’ Moss said. He turned to address the desk sergeant. ‘I want Mr. Wells processed and placed in holding cell E-1. No funny business. My instructions are to be followed precisely. I don’t want to see this guy walk because of some administrative error, understood?’

  ‘Yes, gov’,’ the desk sergeant said with a firm nod.

  ‘And get Sergeant Mapson to contact the US Embassy. I want to know how long Wells has been in the UK and his current visa status.’

  This was what Will was most afraid of. Not a prolonged investigation, not losing his own personal freedom, but of being sent away and never being able to help Abigayle. At least if he was still here, in London, he still had a chance. Who knows, maybe he could try a jailbreak.

  ‘Will do,’ said the desk sergeant, who was seemingly thrilled to have something to do.

  ‘I’m going to head back to the scene,’ Moss said. ‘No one talks to him until I return.’

  With that, DI Moss strode out of the station, the automatic doors sliding closed behind him. To Will the whole episode was reminiscent of saloon doors swinging shut in a western.

  He’s the sheriff around here, I guess.

  The officer stood at Will’s side, looked at the desk sergeant after his superior was safely out of earshot and said, ‘Who the hell’s got his goat? Seems very riled up about this one.’

  ‘I don’t know, seems to be as big a pain in the arse with this one as any other case,’ replied the desk sergeant. He made a few notes, then spun in his chair, pointing his chin into the room behind him. ‘Bennett?’ There was no response. ‘Bennett?’ he said again, slightly louder this time, but still there was no response. Finally, he bellowed, ‘Gary!’

  The sound of hurried feet screeching over the linoleum floor preceded Officer Gary, who stepped through the doorway to the side of the sergeant’s desk and said, ‘Sorry, Sarge, what’d you need?’

  ‘This one needs processing. Put him in E-1.’ He then glanced up from his notes. ‘DI Moss’s orders,’ he added with a knowing look, as if to emphasise the importance of this last detail. Officer Gary grunted in response, then turned to Will. ‘Right then, you’re coming with me.’

  Will was passed from the officer who had accompanied him into the building to Officer Gary’s presumably capable hands. He was pushed through the double doors opposite the entrance and taken into a side room. Officer Gary produced a key, which attached to his belt by a chain, and unlocked Will’s handcuffs. Will rubbed his wrists. He’d seen people do that in movies and felt compelled to mimic the action.

  Officer Gary then began searching Will, who was asked to raise his arms into a T-position. Gary began patting him down, starting under his arms and moving down towards his hips. When his hands patted Will’s jacket pocket, he stopped and took a step back. The pocket with the contents of Frenz Belingi’s safe. The items that would, at the very least, prove that he had broken into the safe and stolen its contents.

  ‘Empty your pockets, please, sir,’ Officer Gary said.

  Will had to think quickly, intentionally reaching into the opposite pocket and pulling out his faux-leather gloves. The palm of the glove had a molten circular scar across it and the toxic plastic smell was thankfully quite faint by this point. Will held it out at arm’s length, like it was a contaminated substance, and motioned towards Officer Gary, who took one look at it and said, ‘What the bloody hell have you been up to, mate?’ He scrunched up his nose in disgust, then retrieved a transparent plastic evidence bag and placed the charred glove inside.

  He turned back to Will and was about to continue his search when the sound of a commotion could be heard in the entrance room. Officer Gary opened the door of the processing room and glanced down the hall towards the sounds. He turned back to Will, pointed at him and said, ‘You. Don’t move.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  May 15th, 1984, 00:03

  Officer Gary hurried out of the room, accidentally knocking the evidence bag with Will’s mangled glove inside onto the floor as he passed. He heaved the door, swinging it shut as he rushed into the hallway towards the entrance room. Will saw the evidence bag hit the floor by his feet and thinking quickly he flicked it with the outside of his right foot in the direction of the doorway. This mixture of luck and quick thinking saw the evidence bag skid across the floor, coming to a rest against the doorframe. The door hit the evidence bag with a low thud, preventing it from closing.

  Will crept towards the doorway, pulling it open slowly. Some unfathomable impulse made him crouch down, retrieve the long-suffering glove from the evidence bag and place it back in his pocket. He poked his head into the hallway and saw Officer Gary jogging away from him. As the officer pushed open the doors to the reception, the sound of the disturbance in the next room became momentarily clearer. Will only caught a few words from the raised voices, but he was sure that one of them sounded familiar.

  Will looked up the other end of the hallway. It was deserted. He skulked out of the room towards the double doors, taking slow and deliberate steps. He could feel his heart rate increasing as he moved down the hallway. With every step his head whipped back over his shoulder, his eyes darting frantically side to side. When he reached the doors, he placed his ear against the cold painted surface. The voices became stronger, but not enough for him to make out clearly.

  He placed one hand on the sturdy steel door handle and the other flat against the door. Very gently he turned the handle and pushed the door firmly until it began to open. He cracked the door inwards just enough for him to see into the reception room. Moss was no longer there, but the desk sergeant, along with Officer Gary and one other officer, were surrounding a shorter man who was acting erratically. The officers were motioning with their hands for him to calm down. He wasn’t being violent, but he was extremely agitated by something, moving from side to side in a misguided effort to get past the officers.

  Okay, Abby, I’m going to make a run for it while they’re distracted.

  The shorter man was speaking quickly and kept repeating variations of ‘What have you been doing this whole time since I called you?’ and ‘A woman’s life is in danger!’ and ‘He could be butchering her as we speak!’

  Will couldn’t quite make out the man’s face behind the officers wh
o were surrounding him. But he knew the voice. No question. The sudden realisation caused Will to delay for a moment too long.

  Gary, who had his back to Will, seemed to detect his presence and he turned and locked eyes with him. He grimaced and began half walking, half running towards him. As Gary approached, a gap opened in the huddle of officers and Will caught a glimpse of the shorter man’s face. He already knew the face that the voice belonged to – it was their neighbour, Kevin.

  Will took a step away from the doors as Gary pushed through and grabbed him by the back of the neck with one hand. Gary was a big guy, and his hands were like baseball mitts, and almost completely encircled Will’s neck. Gary turned Will’s head so that the two of them were eye to eye, their faces uncomfortably close.

  ‘Oi! What did I say to you?’ Gary said.

  ‘Sorry, I was only –’

  Just then, another officer came walking down the hallway, heading towards the reception. Gary summoned the other officer with a nod and said, ‘Do me a favour and take this one downstairs.’ It was an order, not a question. ‘Stick him in E-1 for me while I deal with Miss Marple out there.’

  The other officer shrugged and took hold of Will’s arm and led him along the hallway. They turned left and then right and right again before heading down a flight of stairs. Will was being passed around between the officers like a toy – it was incredibly demeaning. He felt helpless and in a hopeless situation now that he’d missed his chance to escape.

  The stairwell was narrow and steep. The walls were cold and damp. Thick plaster was crumbling away, revealing brittle red brick beneath. As they descended, the light retreated into darkness and the walls appeared to close in even further. The stairs seemed to take them deeper into the bowels of the building than Will thought possible.

  Finally, when they reached the bottom of the stairs they emerged into a dark, dank room with lofty ceilings. The room was long and narrow, more like a wide corridor than a room. Along the wall opposite the stairwell was a row of cast-iron bars running its length. Additional sets of bars ran at right angles, dividing the room into seven separate jail cells. Bare copper pipes, deep brown and matted with age, ran across the tops of the walls. A skein of cables and ventilation ducts criss-crossed the ceiling, forming complex patterns. Bulbs hung low on long, braided fabric wires. They provided insufficient light for the room, and the small square barred windows near the ceiling provided little extra light from the street beyond. The whole space bore more resemblance to a medieval torture chamber than anything Will had expected from a British jail.

  He was taken left from the bottom of the stairs to the cell at the far end of the row. The far wall at the end of the narrow room was constructed from blue-grey concrete blocks. It looked as though it had been closed off recently, perhaps as part of the modern extension that Will had seen when he arrived at the station.

  The officer pushed him into the cell and without saying a word closed the heavy metal door, inserted a key into the lock and turned it. There was a high-pitched squeal of protest, metal scraping against metal as the lock slid home. The officer looked at Will with a blank expression before moving off towards the stairs and disappearing out of sight.

  His cell had nothing other than a metal-framed bed with a thin mattress along the back wall under one of the small square windows. Will stepped up onto the bed and attempted to peer out through the window two metres above. If not for the fact that the old springs in the bed frame depressed almost to the floor under Will’s weight, he might have been able to see out to the street beyond. Instead, he had to pull himself upwards by the metal bars, lifting his feet clear of the mattress, to get an unobscured view.

  Outside he could see the car park at the rear of the station. He was surprised to see DI Moss, who was having a one-sided conversation with Sergeant Mapson. He was talking at Mapson rather than with him and in an aggressive manner, waving a finger close to his face to emphasise whatever point he was trying to make. The conversation ended abruptly with Moss climbing into the car parked at the kerb and speeding off. Mapson remained on the pavement, watching Moss’s car drive out through the gates at the rear of the car park. He took a moment to compose himself, then walked into the station and out of sight.

  Will had never been particularly athletic and before long the muscles in his arms were beginning to burn. He lowered himself down from the window and sank onto the bed.

  He heaved a long sigh and took in his new surroundings. The jail cell was quiet aside from the slow dripping of water from one of the many pipes that passed overhead. The sound seemed to scream the events of the day back at him with every harsh, unforgiving drop, and he felt tears of despair welling up in his eyes as he pictured Abigayle’s face. He’d failed her, he knew, and he held his head in his hands.

  He slumped onto his back and began to dry his tears. His eyes opened slowly, unfocused, meandering around the room, eventually resting on the small square window. He stared at it blankly at first. Then his eyes narrowed and a frown formed as he started to concentrate. When his brain caught up and processed the image he was looking at, he shot bolt upright, wide-eyed in disbelief.

  Will rooted around in his jacket pocket and closed his hand around the fragile paper and the rigid ID card. He loathed Kevin, but he had to admit to being rather grateful to the guy for creating such a perfectly timed distraction. His theatrics had prevented Gary from completing his search and likely finding the only thing that might help him find Abigayle.

  Will carefully unfolded the paper and pondered the crude sketch. He sprung up from the bed and turned to face the wall in a single, swift movement. Standing with his back pressed against the cold bars of his cell, he compared the drawing with the wall in front of him. There was no doubt that the drawing was a perfect match with the wall he was currently standing in front of.

  But what does it mean?

  He flipped the page over and began reading the few legible sections of the document. Will could just about make out that the name, address and date of birth of the prisoner were all listed as “Unknown.” However, the rest of the description was a perfect match for Frenz Belingi. Apparently, he had spent some time in this very prison; the address at the top of the page confirmed this.

  The only other detail that caught Will’s eye centred around the prisoner’s movement to a different cell. The scrawled handwriting described a prisoner suspected of tampering with his previous cell, E-5. Will looked around for any kind of markings denoting the cell he was currently in. He looked through the bars, straining his eyes to see the concrete floor outside his cell. Tilting his head to read the upside-down characters, he saw, in white paint, E-1. Will cursed under his breath and pressed his head against the bars, frustrated. As he looked down at the lettering, he was just about able to make out a chipped layer of yellow paint below it. The paint was faint, so Will crouched down to better read it. Squinting in the low light, he could make out the old lettering: E-5.

  He turned his attention back to the paper, which stated that the prisoner was moved to the adjacent cell, E-4. Will looked to the cell on his left, but the lettering outside it indicated E-2 in the newer white paint and E-6 in the older yellow paint.

  What the hell happened to cell E-4?

  Will flipped the paper over to the drawing and studied it more closely. The only discrepancy he could see was in the bars. The bars in his cell were horizontal, cylindrical poles, moulded into the stone, but the drawing showed what looked like flat strips of metal that crossed each other at right angles, like a lattice, secured to the wall with bolts or rivets. The shape and proximity of the window to the ceiling was almost exact in both, however. The only other feature of note in the drawing was one brick, which had been shaded slightly darker so that it subtly stood out from the rest. In the drawing, this one brick sat two across and four rows down from the base of the square window.

  Will stood on the bed once more and traced his hand across the wall.

  Two bricks across and four bri
cks down.

  His hand stopped on one brick that at first glance appeared no different to the bricks that surrounded it. However, upon closer inspection, Will could see that the mortar around this brick was a slightly different colour. He prodded the mortar with his finger and a generous chunk crumbled and fell away from the wall. He spun his head around instinctively to check that he wasn’t being watched, grateful to see that he wasn’t. Returning to the brick, he began scraping, prodding and probing until most of the remaining mortar had fallen away.

  The brick was now loose and could be wiggled around in the enlarged cavity in which it sat. Will slid his fingers around it carefully and pulled it free. The displaced air around the brick created a mini dust storm, spraying fine powder directly into Will’s nasal passages. His attempt to wave away the onslaught of dust proving futile, he coughed and spluttered and sneezed in quick succession. When the dust eventually cleared, Will could just barely make out the leather spine of a small book lodged in the cavity left by the brick. He pulled the book free. It was small, pocket-sized, but had weight, which hinted at the fine quality of the paper and the binding. He wiped the layer of powdered mortar from the cover to reveal something that Will had seen before: the now-familiar many-handed clockface symbol from Frenz Belingi’s shop.

  CHAPTER TEN

  May 15th, 1984, 00:43

  Will was balanced precariously on the mattress, which nodded erratically to one side or the other, seemingly whenever he moved. He very gently stepped back down to the ground and sat on the bed, holding the unassuming book in both hands, like a delicate, precious treasure.