THE TIME THIEF

by Linda Buckley-Archer

  The Tar Man held the horse still for an instant and then urged his mount into a majestic leap. Four horse hooves exploded like a thunderclap onto the top of a black cab. The impact was deafening. All heads turned to discover the source of the commotion. Skidding and sliding on the shiny metal, the horse could not keep its footing for long and the Tar Man, his great black coat flying behind him, guided it onto the next cab and then the next and the next…. Hysterical passengers scrambled to get out onto the street. Pedestrians stopped dead in their tracks. And, looking down from their ringside seats on the upper decks of buses, people gawked in disbelief at the spectacle of the Tar Man and his horse playing leapfrog with the black cabs from Selfridges to beyond John Lewis. Soon screams were replaced by laughter and whoops and cheers and the furious shouts of a long line of outraged cabbies. The merest hint of a smile appeared on the Tar Man’s face, but just as the thought flashed through his mind to snatch off his three-cornered hat and take a bow, he became aware of an unworldly wind and a rhythmic thrumming that caused the ground beneath him to vibrate. He looked up.

  The police helicopter slowly descended. It hovered directly above the Tar Man, its blades rotating in a sickening blur. When a booming voice, like the voice of God, spoke, he held up an arm to his face and paled visibly, paralyzed with fear.

  “Get off your horse. Get off your horse and lie on the ground!”

  A pencil beam of blinding, blue-white light moved over the Tar Man. He was center stage, spotlit for all to see. The visitor from 1763 could not have orchestrated a more public entrance into the twenty-first century if he had hired the best publicist in London.

  The pilot’s magnified and distorted voice bounced off the high buildings into the foggy air:

  “GET OFF YOUR HORSE! NOW!”

  The Tar Man did not—could not—move. The helicopter descended even lower. In a reflex action to stop his three-cornered hat from blowing away, he clasped it to his head and, somehow, this simple action seemed to break the spell. He managed to tear his gaze away from the giant, flying beast and quickly scanned his surroundings for an escape route. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he recognized an alley from the Oxford Road he knew. Praying it would not be a dead end, he tugged sharply on the reins and urged his horse on. The crowd was less dense here and the Tar Man broke out, unchallenged, from the circle of light and vanished into black shadows. The helicopter pilot, anxious not to lose his prey, instantly flew higher and headed to the south of Oxford Street, training his searchlight onto half-lit sidewalks and picking out bewildered shoppers in its powerful beam, but the fugitive horseman was lost to sight.

  The Tar Man emerged from the alley and rode at breakneck speed through the network of quieter streets toward Piccadilly. Onward the Tar Man galloped, never stopping nor slowing down. He encountered few of these outlandish carriages that moved without horses, and whenever he did see one, the Tar Man charged directly at it, wielding his umbrella fearlessly and daring it to attack him. In every case the strategy worked—the carriages squealed to an immediate halt. But how little bottom their passengers displayed, cowering behind those queer, curved windows! Faith, they are meeker than milkmaids! Why do they not challenge me?

  “Does no one ride in this city?” he yelled at a young man in a black MINI Cooper. “Where are the horses? Where is the dirt?”

  The bewildered man shook his head slowly from side to side.

  The Tar Man took off again. Onward he galloped, but always above and behind him he sensed the thudding of the flying beast getting nearer. He backtracked and hid in doorways and still managed to outwit his airborne pursuer. As he rode, window displays of impossible refinement flashed by—extraordinary costumes and shimmering jewels, all illuminated by lights that seemed as bright as the sun. With candles or lamps as powerful as these, he thought, the city need never sleep. Moon-cursers and cutthroats and assassins would be at pains to find a dark enough spot in which to do their business.

  Sirens still wailed all around, but like the insistent whirring sound of the helicopter, the fearful noise was beginning to recede into the distance. The Tar Man allowed himself to slow down and he scrutinized the sky above. To the west of him, he could just make out the fuzzy white line of the helicopter’s searchlight piercing through the swirling fog. He let out a sigh of relief.

  The horse was tiring. Steam rose from its flanks and its breath came out in short bursts. When the Tar Man turned a corner into a grand square and saw that there was an enclosed garden at its center, he decided to rest there awhile. He whispered into his horse’s ear, clicked his tongue, and galloped toward the iron railings. The horse sailed over them and came to a halt under the cover of trees. The square was deserted except for a few couples strolling around its perimeter. The Tar Man slid off the horse and patted its neck.

  “You have done well, my friend,” he said. The horse blew noisily through its velvet nostrils and reached down to tear what blades of grass it could from the clipped turf. The Tar Man walked over to one of the wooden benches that lined the gravel path and slumped down. He put his head in his hands. He was trembling—whether on account of the cold or the danger he did not know.

  Unnoticed by the Tar Man, a police car glided into Berkeley Square, and when its driver spotted the horse, he turned off his engine and spoke into his radio. Slowly and quietly, two police officers got out of the patrol car and scrambled over the iron railings, landing noiselessly on damp earth.

  A gray squirrel, ferreting about among plastic wrappers in the litter bin next to the Tar Man, disturbed him. He looked up. As he did so, he caught sight of the row of fine, tall buildings on the east side of the square. Distressed, he jumped up and looked at the west side and then looked to the south. His heart skipped a beat. Did he find himself in Berkeley Square? Could that huge edifice be Landsdowne House? He tipped back his head and peered up at the topmost branches of plane trees. These trees must be nearly two hundred years old!

  “How in heaven can this be?” he exclaimed aloud. “This is Berkeley Square!”

  He had accompanied Lord Luxon here only last month on a trip to see Mr. Adams, the architect, who was trying to persuade his master to sell his house on Bird Cage Walk and build a five-story house here in Berkeley Square instead. Yet there had not been a single plane tree in sight on that day and the front facade of Landsdowne House was barely started! The thought struck him that he had understood right from the start why this London was at the same time friend and stranger to him—yet he could not admit it to himself until now.

  “I am undone!” he exclaimed aloud. “The machine has brought me to the future! How am I to return home?”

  “Would this be your horse, sir?” asked a flat, deep voice behind him.

  The Tar Man swung around. He had been surprised in attack too often in his time to hesitate. As soon as he saw the two men, dressed in the same uniform as his pursuers on Oxford Street, he dived straight at their legs and grabbed a knee each, so that they toppled over one on top of the other. Before they were back on their feet, the Tar Man had already leaped onto his horse and was galloping away up the gravel path beneath the plane trees. The policemen ran back to their patrol car, radioing for assistance as they went.

  The Tar Man’s heart was pounding. These soldiers, with their ugly dark blue uniforms and cropped hair, were clearly not about to give up the chase. He was the fox and the pack of hounds was baying for his blood. Sirens blared from all directions. Then he heard the helicopter alter its course and move nearer. It was beyond his understanding how they did it, yet he was convinced that the soldiers could signal to each other from great distances….

  He had to find his way back to his old haunts, seek sanctuary at St. Paul’s Church in Covent Garden. At all costs he must avoid the main thoroughfares where he would be easy game for the flying beast. Instead, he would head south toward Green Park and then east toward Leicester Square, taking care to avoid Piccadilly.

  When the Tar Man turned into Dover Street, however
, he was confronted by another horseless carriage, this time with blue lights blazing on its roof and a wailing siren so piercing it hurt his ears. It accelerated straight at him at tremendous speed. The Tar Man pulled on the reins so sharply that the horse reared up into the air on its back legs. He retreated backward and turned around, only to see two more police cars coming toward him from the direction of Berkeley Square. Now he fled toward Albermarle Street, but fearing that he would be trapped into riding into Piccadilly itself where he would be too exposed, he pulled up sharply and turned right into New Bond Street instead. London was clad in different, garish clothes and yet, here, its bone structure was still the same. He knew these streets. He galloped recklessly on, but a moment later he knew, without even needing to turn around, that his pursuers were upon him.

  “So,” he cried to the horse, “it seems that you are the last prancer in London and I am to be hunted down by persons determined to offer me hospitality of a kind I should prefer to refuse…. Ha! Damn their eyes, I say! If they’re bent on nabbing us, let us not give them an easy ride!”

  He swerved right into the Burlington Arcade and even as he rode for his life through the glass tunnel of luxury shops, all crystal and silver and jewels and silks, his jaw dropped at the sight of such rich pickings. It was near closing time and there were only half a dozen people left in the arcade. The air rang with the deafening sound of horse hooves striking polished stone.

  “Hold, there!” he cried and pulled hard on the reins. His mount reared briefly onto its hind legs and horse and rider came to a skidding halt outside the window of a jeweler’s shop. The Tar Man’s eyes devoured the king’s ransom of precious stones and gold that nestled in dove-gray velvet before him. A woman in a pearl necklace and cashmere coat stood cowering next to the same display. If the Tar Man was transfixed by the sight of a sapphire as big as a chestnut, sparkling under a spotlight, the woman was equally transfixed by the dark figure towering above her. She could feel the heat coming off his horse’s steaming sides. The explosive roar of police motorcycles flying into Burlington Arcade broke the sapphire’s spell, but the Tar Man was not going to flee without some reward. He switched his attention from the shop window to the woman’s necklace in the blink of an eye. He snatched hold of her pearls and gave them a sharp tug. The clasp broke, leaving her neck bare and her face frozen in shock. Two powerful motorbikes screeched past her as, opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water, she watched the Tar Man—and her pearl necklace—vanish out of sight into Piccadilly.

  A few hundred yards away lay Piccadilly Circus. London was coming to life for the evening. Giant neon signs blinked on and off above the bustle of the street, black cabs deposited theatergoers close to Shaftsbury Avenue, and couples stood hand in hand outside restaurants, examining the menus. A large group of young tourists sat on the edge of the fountain under the statue of Eros. They were drinking from cans and were dressed in T-shirts despite the bitter cold. One of them filmed his friends as they stood, laughing and posing outrageously, on the steps beneath the fountain. When they suddenly stopped playing around, their attention drawn by something behind him, the boy turned and focused his lens on a sight that had not been advertised in the travel brochures.

  A lone figure on horseback was galloping toward them, picking his way through the crowds on the sidewalk and the traffic in the street. In front of him, people scrabbled desperately to get out of his way. When a stunned driver braked right in front of him, the horseman simply jumped onto the roof of the car before continuing on his way toward Piccadilly Circus.

  “Wow!” exclaimed the boy and zoomed in on the Tar Man’s pursuers. A wall of police cars and motorcyles, headlights blazing and sirens screaming, stretched fully from one side of the street to the other. Above them all, a helicopter hovered angrily, like a wasp that has been brushed aside once too often and is getting ready to strike.

  The boy trained his camera on the rider. He was wearing a bizarre black hat as well as a look of intense concentration, and the boy recognized an unmistakeable glint of enjoyment cross his face. A surfer on the crest of a wave of police cars! This guy was actually having fun! The boy gave a whoop of appreciation. Whatever he’d done, he sure had gotten under the skin of the police—they looked mad!

  When the rider drew close to Piccadilly Circus tube station, and he saw the steady flow of people descending beneath the sidewalk, he slowed down briefly. Giving a cursory glance over his shoulder at the stream of patrol cars sweeping up behind him, he suddenly turned one hundred and eighty degrees and disappeared down the steep stairs into the London Underground. The horse had such confidence in his new master that he trotted down willingly, for all the world as if he caught the tube every day. Up above, police cars and motorcycles screeched to a halt. Passengers started to flee up the stairs in panic but immediately had to press themselves against the walls as a small army of uniformed officers converged on the ticket hall in hot pursuit of the desperado on horseback who had left a trail of destruction halfway across London.

  A few minutes later, shortly after the horse had trotted calmly back up the steps, a man emerged from a different exit, wearing a tweed jacket several sizes too big for him. He had long black hair which settled in rats’ tails on his collar and fell forward across his face, concealing the rather nasty scar on one cheek. The man set off, head down and hands in his pockets, in the direction of Covent Garden.

  Kate woke up screaming, “Peter!”

  Dr. Pirretti, who was driving the hired estate car up the M1 through dense fog, swerved involuntarily with the shock of it.

  “Whoa!” she exclaimed. “That was a close call!”

  Kate’s Labrador, Molly, who was sitting in the trunk, started to whimper and put her golden head over the rear seat so that she could lick her face. Kate’s father, Dr. Dyer, pushed the dog away.

  “Everything’s all right, Kate,” he reassured her. “You’re safe. I thought you were never going to wake up—you’ve missed all the fun….”

  “Where am I, Dad? What’s happening?”

  Kate was not quite awake and felt sick and confused and disoriented.

  “You’re going home. Anita is driving us back up to Derbyshire.”

  “Anita?”

  “Dr. Anita Pirretti—from NASA. I told you—she and Ed Jacob came over from the States when they heard that you and Peter had disappeared from the lab. She’s been team-leading the antigravity project….”

  “Too much detail!” protested Dr. Pirretti. “The poor kid’s scarcely conscious!”

  “Anita and Ed managed to get us out of Hampstead Heath without attracting too much attention.”

  “If we’d been spotted,” laughed Dr. Pirretti, “we’d be in police custody by now! Your dad and I must have looked a tad suspicious bundling an unconscious girl and a dog into a car in the dark….”

  “Ed was no better. He certainly looked as if he was up to no good sliding the antigravity machine into the back of that massive van….”

  “Better too big than too small! … Kate, you don’t know how glad I am to meet you at last….”

  But Kate was not listening.

  “Dad!” she exclaimed, ignoring Dr. Pirretti. “What happened to Peter? Where is he? Did he make it?”

  There was a pause. “No. Peter was left behind. The Tar Man took his place…. There was nothing I could do….”

  “But we’ve got to go back! We can’t leave him there on his own!”

  “I’m taking you back to your mother before we decide what to do next….”

  “What’s to decide? We have to go back and get him!”

  “Ssshh … Kate. Calm down. Everything will be fine….”

  “We are going back to get him, aren’t we? I promised I’d never leave the eighteenth century without him!”

  “Of course we are, love, but I’m not going to keep you from your mum a second longer than I have to…. She’s been through enough. Not to mention your brothers and sisters. Sam was there when your
mum took the phone call. He was beside himself—I couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying.”

  “Poor Sam.”

  Kate sighed deeply and let her tired eyelids close, but immediately the vivid memory of Peter being hurled backward from the antigravity machine came at her again, and for a split second she relived the horror of that moment. The dismay in Peter’s dark eyes as he faded from view … She shuddered involuntarily and put her hand to her forehead.

  “Does your head hurt?”

  Kate nodded.

  “Mine too. I’ll give you some something for it.”

  “Do you think Molly’s got a headache, too?”

  “Probably.”

  Kate twisted round and stroked Molly’s soft ears.

  “Good girl.”

  Dr. Dyer poured some hot, sweet tea from a vacuum flask and passed it to Kate. She swallowed the painkillers her father held out for her, and then gobbled down the chocolate he proffered to take the taste away.

  “Mmmm … I’ve missed chocolate.”

  Her father laughed. “So are you going to say hello to Anita?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Hello, Anita.”

  “Good to meet you, Kate,” said Dr. Pirretti. She spoke in a mellow Californian accent. “You’ve been on an amazing and unique journey—but I sure hope there won’t be anyone following in your footsteps!”

  “But we’ve got to go back for Peter!” exclaimed Kate, looking alarmed.

  “Of course, we will,” said Dr. Dyer quickly. “But for the time being, at least, we can be grateful that he’s with friends. Gideon will look out for him until we can rescue him….”