by Mark Morris
She threw up her hands. ‘But how can you use the heart again? We’ve already established that it’s killing you. There’s no way you’d survive another…’ she groped for the appropriate word ‘…blast!’
‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘But I have to try. I don’t think I’ve got a choice. I have to find a way.’
‘What way?’ she said, and this time it was her frustration that was making her angry. ‘What way could there possibly be?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ I admitted.
TWENTY-SIX
PROVING IT
I’ve always loved the sea.
Even as a kid, spending odd days or holidays in Brighton or Margate, Southend or Selsey Bill, the sea meant more to me than ice creams and sandcastles and fish and chips. There’d be a part of me, even back then, that would respond to it on an instinctive level, that would recognise, in comparison to its dispassionate, eternal vastness, how tiny and insignificant we were, and how petty were our cares and concerns. I might not have been able to articulate those feelings back then, but I felt them all the same. It didn’t frighten me or make me sad; on the contrary, it soothed me. Even as young as seven or eight I’d find a place on the beach to be by myself – if there were rocks, where I could hide myself away in a crevice, so much the better – and I’d happily sit and watch the tide coming in and out for hours. I loved its ceaseless rhythmic shushing; I loved the way the sea looked – glossy and dimpled on the surface, like beaten tin, white and foamy and fizzing at the edges, where it crashed against the jagged black rocks. And I loved the way it moved – sinewy and rippling, like something alive. I’d watch it and I’d forget who I was; I’d become mesmerised by it. I’d imagine the breeze blowing in to shore was its breath ruffling my hair. I’d lick my lips and taste a delicious fishy saltiness.
Once, I remember, I was gone so long that my parents thought I’d either been snatched by a kiddie fiddler or swept out to sea. They had people scouring the area, looking for me. They’d been on the verge of calling out the coastguard, alerting the local lifeboat station, when I turned up, drowsy and smiling, all my worries washed away by the tide. My dad ruined my mood by giving me a clip round the ear, which I felt I didn’t deserve, and my mum was weepy for the rest of the day – not because of what had happened, but at the thought of what might have.
Even that didn’t stop me going off by myself, though, seeking solace in the sea whenever I got the chance. I liked my own company. Always have. If I’d had brothers or sisters it might have been different, but I can’t remember ever feeling alone, ever envying friends who came from larger families.
Standing on the beach, staring at the sea now, dark grey and choppy, like churning chunks of slate, I was reminded of those bygone days. Back then, of course, it had always been summer; now it was autumn and the sky looked murky and charred, and the wind flying in off the crashing waves felt like blades of ice that sliced the skin but left no marks.
Bygone days. Innocent ones too. The sea still made me feel insignificant, but it no longer had the ability to shrink my problems.
I looked at my watch. It was almost 10:20 a.m. I’d arranged the meeting for 10:30, but had wanted to get here early, to suss out the territory and work out exactly what I was going to say.
Turning my head quickly left and right, I scanned the beach in both directions. The bay was enclosed – backed by cliffs, from the top of which a footpath zigzagged down like a scar, and bordered to left and right by promontories of jagged black rock, against which waves crashed with tremendous force at high tide.
I’d selected the location carefully. I’d wanted somewhere remote, somewhere I’d be more likely to be listened to, where it wouldn’t be easy for the other person to just stand up and walk away. There was a café on the cliff top – a rectangular flat-roofed building that was virtually all glass on the seaward side so that customers could enjoy the ocean view whilst sitting in the warmth, sipping their lattes and hot chocolates – but even though it was little used at this time of year it had still been too public for my purposes. I knew the meeting was likely to be difficult. I knew too that if the other person broke his word it was likely to be over before it had even begun. There was nowhere for me to run to here, nowhere to hide.
‘I’ll tell you everything,’ I’d said to him on the phone. ‘But only if you come alone.’
He hadn’t liked it, but I’d stuck to my guns. And in the end, he’d agreed.
I looked out to sea again. I’d hoped it would clear my mind, but all it did was reflect my thoughts: dark, churning, never still. Its vastness didn’t soothe me now; if anything, it emphasised how hopeless my quest was, how impossible it would be to find Kate without help.
‘Where are you?’ I murmured. ‘When are you?’
The sea roared and the wind howled in reply.
I glanced at my watch again. 10:26. I continued to stare doggedly out to sea, trying to settle myself. There was an imaginary itch between my shoulder blades, and the bruise on my temple throbbed where the cold wind flailed against it, but I refused to turn round. There was no point in it. No point in anxiously scouring the cliff path to see whether he would come, whether he would be alone. For now, at least, my immediate future was in the hands of fate.
Although my senses were attuned I didn’t hear his footsteps on the sand, not even when he was right behind me. I only knew he was standing there when he spoke. Even then the wind snatched at his voice, shaving off the sharp edges, making it seem further away than it was.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are? Pissing me about like this?’
I turned to face him, the wind buffeting me from behind, as if trying to push us together. Whether DI Jensen’s long, knobbly face was white with anger or simply scoured bloodless by the elements I couldn’t tell. There was no mistaking his expression, though. He looked seriously pissed off. His lips were pressed tightly together, his eyes so wide and glaring you could see the whites all the way round his pupils. Even his sparse hair, as colourless as the rest of him, looked angry as it whipped about in the wind.
‘Thanks for coming,’ I said, glancing behind him and seeing that he had, indeed, seemed to have kept his word.
His face curled in a snarl. ‘Bollocks to that.’
I didn’t respond to his anger. He was entitled to it. Since reporting Kate’s disappearance I’d fucked him about big time.
He took an almost aggressive step towards me, half raised a hand as if to punch me in the face. I was wary, but still I tried not to react, and he ended up slashing at the air.
‘So what the fuck is this?’
My own hands were in the pockets of my coat, my tension, my nervousness, centred in them, out of sight. My left hand was balled into a fist, my right clenched around the obsidian heart.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I know it’s unorthodox—’
‘Unorthodox!’ He snorted.
‘But I needed to meet you somewhere… neutral. Out of the way. I’ve got a long, crazy, complicated, ridiculous story to tell, but it also happens to be the truth, which is what I thought you deserved. I’m just… I’m sick of lying. Sick of running. I thought it was time to… confess all. Get everything out in the open.’
He glanced around, as if sensing a trap.
‘What are you involved in, Mr Locke? Are you in danger? Is someone threatening you?’
I almost barked a laugh, but managed to turn it into a half snort, half shrug.
‘Yes and yes. But it’s not as simple as that.’
Before I could elaborate he was at me again, snapping like a terrier.
‘Do you know who’s holding Kate? Do you know where she is? Is that why you’ve been so evasive? Because of what her abductors have threatened to do to her if you talk?’
I half closed my eyes, as though his words were sand blowing into my face.
‘Please, Inspector,’ I said. ‘Let me tell this in my own way. From the beginning. If I start to answer your questions, it’ll only lead to more quest
ions, and we’ll never get anywhere.’
His face scrunched up as if he’d tasted something sour, but he gave an abrupt nod.
‘All right then. Go on.’
I took a deep breath.
‘Before I start, I need you to promise you won’t interrupt, or ask questions, until I’ve finished. Whatever you think of what I’m about to tell you, I just want you to hear me out. And I want you to know that this story is… well, it’s mental, it’s like nothing you’ve ever heard before. It’s the sort of story where, at the end of it, you’ll say “Do you honestly expect me to believe that?” or “What the fuck do you take me for?” But before you get angry I want you to ask yourself why I’m telling you such a crazy story; what I could hope to gain from it.’ I grimaced. The words had sounded better in my head. More slick, more polished. ‘And… well, that’s it really,’ I finished lamely.
He stared at me. Then he sighed.
‘I’m listening.’
I started to talk. Right there on the beach, as we stood facing each other like a couple of spies in a John Le Carré novel, I told him everything. I held nothing back. I told him about meeting up with Benny, about killing McCallum, about the attack on Incognito, about Lyn, about Frank, about Tallarian, the Dark Man, the Wolves of London. I told it all as quickly and concisely as I could. I offered no opinions, no theories; I just gave him the facts.
How long it took I’m not sure. Half an hour? Forty-five minutes? The whole time the wind blew and the sea roared and the grey beach on which we stood remained deserted. It felt like my own little pocket in time and space. A micro-universe, containing nothing but this location, these two people. God knows what anyone watching from the café above would have thought, to see two men, huddled in overcoats, simply standing, facing each other, for half an hour or more. We must have looked like tiny black flecks on a restless grey landscape. But no one came to see what we were doing. No one intervened. The only other signs of life were the gulls wheeling overhead calling mournfully.
Throughout the telling, DI Jensen barely moved. He just stood there, expressionless, lips pressed together, eyes fixed on me. I told him about Hope, about returning to the present day, about Oak Hill, about the visions I’d been having.
‘Whoever sent that email to Clover – the Dark Man, his representative – told me not to tell anyone, that Kate would die if I did. But we’ve gone way beyond that now. So I decided it was time to wipe the slate clean. Start afresh. That’s why I called you.’
The silence when I finished speaking was almost painful. It wasn’t really silence, of course, not with the sea and the wind and the screeching gulls, but that was what it felt like.
My throat was raw and dry. I swallowed and winced, tasting salt. I still couldn’t read Jensen’s expression. The way he stared at me was unsettling, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
‘Well?’ I eventually said with a half laugh. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’
His lips parted, but he didn’t speak straight away.
Then, quietly, he said, ‘What do you expect me to say?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. How about: Do you honestly expect me to believe that?’
He seemed to harden – his face, his muscles.
‘Are you taking the piss, Mr Locke?’
‘I wish I was.’
His face twisted then, and I realised he was trying to maintain control, to hold his anger in check.
‘I can’t decide whether you’re fucking me about or genuinely deranged. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter. There is one part of your story I do believe, though.’
Heart sinking, I said, ‘And what’s that?’
‘I believe you’re responsible for the death of Barnaby McCallum. You know too much about the specific injury that killed him not to be. Alex Locke, I’m therefore arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Mr Barnaby McCallum. You do not have to say anything, but what you do say—’
‘He’s telling the truth,’ said a voice from my left. ‘I’m telling the truth.’
Both Jensen and I turned. The man standing a little further up the beach, about twenty metres away from us, had appeared from nowhere. He had something in his hand, was holding it up to show us. At first, with a lurch of alarm, I thought it was a grenade – and then my eyes widened.
It was the obsidian heart!
I looked at the man again. His hair was grey, almost white. He looked to be in his fifties, maybe older.
Then the scales fell from my eyes and I saw him anew. My entire body went weak and watery. My head swam, and for a moment I thought I was going to faint.
‘Fuck,’ I breathed. ‘Oh, fuck.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ Jensen barked as the man took a few steps closer.
The newcomer smiled. I couldn’t get over the wrinkles that framed his mouth like brackets, the crow’s feet that radiated out from the corners of his eyes.
‘Don’t you know, Inspector?’ the man said. ‘Don’t you recognise me?’
Jensen narrowed his eyes, but I saw something cross his face: a glimmer of understanding – and fear.
‘Should I?’
The man nodded at me. His voice was gentle. ‘I’m him. He’s me. A younger me.’ He waggled the obsidian heart from side to side in his hand. ‘Show him, Alex.’
I withdrew the obsidian heart from my pocket, held it up as the older me was holding his up. I was fascinated by him (by me), by how he (I) had aged. I wanted to stare at him; I found it difficult to tear my gaze away. But I wanted to see how Jensen would react too.
The DI was trembling, his eyes darting wildly from the older me’s face to my own.
‘No,’ he said, sounding scared. ‘It’s not possible. It’s a trick.’
‘It’s not, you know,’ the older me said, his voice still gentle, sympathetic. ‘And I’m going to prove it to you now. Brace yourself.’
He disappeared.
I can’t describe how it happened. He didn’t shimmer out of existence. He didn’t instantaneously vanish like a ghost in a seventies kids’ show. If anything, it was a perception thing, perhaps the mind’s way of coping with the impossible. It was almost as if, for a split second, I’d lost concentration, phased out, been distracted, and that when I looked back at where the older me had been standing he simply wasn’t there any more.
Jensen gave a sort of sobbing groan, and then he fell to his knees in the sand. Clamping a hand over his eyes in an almost child-like way, as if to deny what he had seen, he began to shudder.
TWENTY-SEVEN
COFFEE AND CAKE
Why do I have to be so bloody enigmatic? Why couldn’t I just come back from the future, sit myself down and tell myself everything?
It was a weird feeling, being pissed off at yourself as though you were another person, but that was how I felt all the same. The only customer in the Cliff Top Café I looked glumly out through the clear patch of window I’d wiped free of condensation, whilst the owner busied herself behind the counter and hummed along to 10CC’s ‘I’m Not In Love’, which was playing quietly on some Golden Oldies radio station. Because all our footprints were still visible on the otherwise smooth grey sand, it was easy to pick out not only the spot, close to the sea’s edge, where Jensen and I had been standing, but also the places where the older me had appeared and disappeared.
I stared at the marks left by the older me, a line of footprints maybe ten metres long, like a thin black scar. Footprints from the future, I thought. It should have filled me with wonder, but all I felt was frustration and resentment.
At least the older me had saved me from a tricky situation – though not without giving poor old Jensen a mental breakdown in the process. Actually, Jensen had been all right (well, sort of) once he’d recovered from his trauma. Shell-shocked and dazed, he’d decided not to arrest me, had said he was going to go away and think about things for a while; specifically, about how to proceed with McCallum’s murder investig
ation.
‘I killed him, but I didn’t murder him,’ I said. ‘It was an accident. And he arranged for it to happen. He wanted it to happen.’
He flapped my words away like troublesome flies. ‘Yes, yes, so you told me. I just…’ He shook his head, defeated. ‘I don’t know, Mr Locke. For the first time in my career I honestly do not know what to do.’
In the end he’d driven away, still undecided. It was the best I could have hoped for, I suppose. Had I been right to tell him everything? It was an impossible question to answer. All I could cling to was that at that time, in that moment, it had felt right. It had felt as though I was ridding myself of baggage, preparing myself for action. What form that action would take, and how I’d respond to and cope with it, I had no idea. As always, what awaited me, despite the hints I’d received from the future, was the unknown, and no amount of strategy or planning could prepare me for that.
Open on the table in front of me, between my cappuccino and my slice of carrot cake, was my notebook. I’d started to carry it everywhere with me now, and to jot down everything I ‘knew’ about the future. Contained in the book were not only reminders of things I apparently needed to do to maintain my timeline – pay off Candice’s boyfriend’s debt, meet Frank and save his life, that sort of thing – but also thoughts, theories, musings. I picked up the pen lying next to the book, and wrote:
Older me – fifty-five? Sixty? Looking fine, healthy. So does this mean I’ll definitely live for at least another twenty years or so? How do I use the heart without it affecting me?
I paused, then wrote down the location, the date, the time that the older me had appeared. Maybe I’d need that at some point in the future to remind myself to come back. Maybe this notepad would become the single most important thing I owned – as important as the obsidian heart itself.
I took a sip of my cappuccino and stared down at the beach again. In a few hours the tide would wash away all evidence of our meeting. But with the heart the past never really went away, did it? It was weird to think that in twenty years or so, if the older me was the me who was sitting here now, I’d revisit this day. I’d pop back into my own past as easily as if I was popping down to the shops for a pint of milk.
