A Symphony of Echoes

by Jodi Taylor

  ‘Well,’ said Kal, tucking her little pistol back into her muff. ‘That was fun. Do you think it was him?’

  I inspected her arm while she kept watch over my shoulder. It wasn’t deep but, as we say, it would sting in the morning.

  ‘I don’t know. I do know I didn’t like the look of him. Or the smell. And what are the odds there would be two maniacs wandering the streets of Whitechapel tonight?’

  ‘Other than us?’

  Brave words aside, she was beginning to shiver. The sweat drying on my face and back was making me cold, too. We took a final look up and down the street. Whitechapel seemed strangely deserted. I suspected that pre-Ripper these streets were never quiet. Even after dark, all sorts of nocturnal transactions would have been taking place. But not tonight.

  I was my usual directionally challenged self. ‘Where’s the pod from here?’

  ‘Not far, actually. Just past that corner. On waste ground.’

  Arm in arm, striding determinedly down the centre of the street, we set off. Our footsteps echoed off the buildings. An eerie sound. A small breeze stirred the ribbons of fog. I kept looking over my shoulder, unable to believe we had escaped that easily. Instead of being lost in the mazed streets of Whitechapel, we were exactly where we needed to be.

  Because we’d been herded.

  Chapter Two

  Ages ago – when I was a kid – I was hiding. I remember crouching in the dark, eyes tight shut, not breathing, not thinking, fighting the overwhelming awareness of someone close by. I had exactly the same feeling now. Something was close by and –

  ‘There!’ said Kal. ‘There’s the pod. Over there.’

  Good old Number Five was sitting exactly where we’d left it, which, when you’ve been to the Cretaceous Period and watched your pod sliding down a mountain without you, is always a relief.

  We tripped and slipped our way over the rough ground, constantly turning, weapons raised. I could see dark blood running off Kal’s fingers. She looked pale and was moving more slowly than usual. However, once I got her back inside the pod, dressed her wound, and got something alcoholic inside her, she’d be fine.

  We were nearly there. We stopped about twenty feet from the pod. Kal called for the door to open and we did a slow 360-degree turn, just in case anything was still hanging around, but we could see nothing. Whatever it was had gone. And bloody good riddance too.

  Half disappointed and half relieved, we backed slowly towards the pod. I darted the torch around. It seemed to take a very long time to get through that door. All the hair on my neck stood on end. I was physically fighting the urge just to drop everything and run.

  ‘Keep going,’ said Kal softly, patting my arm. ‘We’re nearly there.’

  And then we were. The door closed behind us, shutting out the night and the monster. We were warm and safe at last and this was something to tell them back at St Mary’s.

  Number Five was Kal’s favourite pod. They’d been through a lot together, but they’d both survived. Unlike my pod – Number Eight – still badly damaged after emergency extraction from the Cretaceous Period last year, and lying in pieces all over Hawking Hangar as Chief Farrell and his technical crew attempted to reassemble it.

  The console and computer were to the right of the door in Number Five, with the two lumpy and uncomfortable crew seats bolted to the floor in front of it. The toilet was in a partitioned corner. Various lockers around the walls contained all the equipment any historian could possible require. Most importantly, a kettle, a couple of mugs, and a small chiller containing a bottle of something potent provided the essentials of life.

  Pods are our centre of operations; solid, apparently stone-built shacks which jump us back to whichever period we’ve been assigned and from which we work, eat, and sleep. They are cramped, frequently squalid, and despite all the technical section’s best efforts, the toilet never works properly. Number Five smelled as all pods do – hot historians, wet carpet, overloaded electrics, unreliable plumbing, and cabbage.

  Bunches of thick cables ran up the walls and looped their way across the ceiling. Lights flashed amongst the mass of dials, gauges and read-outs on the console. The co-ordinates were all laid-in ready for the return jump. The effect was shabby hi-tec. Scruffy and battered. Just like us historians. Just like all of St Mary’s, really.

  We work for the Institute of Historical Research, based at St Mary’s Priory just outside Rushford. We don’t do time-travel. That’s for amateurs. We’re not time-travellers – we’re historians. We ‘investigate major historical events in contemporary time’. So much more classy. We’re fairly stand-alone, but we answer to the University of Thirsk for our funding. Sometimes, it’s not a happy relationship, but we’d recently pulled off a huge coup, successfully rescuing books from the burning Library at Alexandria. At the moment, Thirsk loved us. That wouldn’t last.

  I helped Kal pull off her coat. As decreed by the fashion of the late 1880s, it was tight fitting, including the sleeves and this had helped prevent too much blood loss. I ripped the sleeve of her blouse (there would be a reproachful memo from Wardrobe in the morning) and slapped on a sterile dressing.

  ‘There you go, as good as new. Sit down. I’ll put everything away. Don’t get cold. Put your coat back on.’ She shrugged it on again. She wore navy blue. I had grey. Both outfits looked shabby but well cared-for. We had gone for the poor-but-honest-shop-girls look. Our bustles had caused much hilarity amongst our heathen colleagues. Our corsets had nearly bloody killed us.

  I stuffed her pistol and torch back inside her muff and dropped it on her lap. She sat stroking the soft material. ‘There’s a bottle in the chiller. Shall we have a final drink for my final mission?’

  I got the bottle and a couple of mugs and she did the honours. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers, Kal. All the best.’

  We chugged back a mugful and I felt myself begin to relax a little. It had been a strenuous night, but it was over now. Time to unwind before going back. We leaned back and put our feet up on the console.

  ‘My God,’ said Kal, regarding me with a strange mix of euphoria, astonishment and sadness. ‘That was my last jump. I’ve survived. I’ve actually survived. Do you know, there were times when I never thought I would? That night in Brussels after the Duchess of Richmond’s ball – I lost Peterson in the chaos and thought I’d never find him or the pod again. The Corn Law Riots. That time with you at the Somme. Do you remember running through all that mud? Or Alexandria, when Professor Rapson nearly blew us all to kingdom come? I survived it all. And now, we may have seen the Ripper and lived. I’ve made it. I never thought I would.’

  She shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘Yep, the stories you won’t be able to tell your kids.’

  She laughed and drained her mug.

  I leaned forward to refill.

  ‘Will you miss it, do you think?’

  ‘Oh God, yes. Yes, I’ll miss it.’

  ‘Then … why?’

  She sighed. ‘I want something more. This has been enormous fun. Still is. But I want something else. You may not understand, Max, but Dieter and I … well, maybe one day … maybe one day, I’ll want a kid. I don’t know. I’m not sure what I want, but I do know this isn’t enough any more.’ She smiled at me. ‘And maybe, one day, you’ll feel the same.’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘Max, you never know.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  I didn’t know else what to say. I couldn’t allow myself to think about how much I would miss her. She was my rock, confidante, co-conspirator, drinking companion, and lifesaver. Whatever was required. The word ‘friend’ didn’t even begin to cover it. I couldn’t comprehend a world without her. And she was leaving St Mary’s. This was her traditional last jump. She was going off to work as our liaison officer at the University of Thirsk. She’d been promoted.

  As had all three of us.

  Tim Peterson was now Chief Training Officer, and in a moment of inexplicabl
e madness, Dr Bairstow had appointed me Chief Operations Officer. Since my responsibilities now included those loveable pyromaniacs in Research and Development, I still wasn’t sure whether this was A Good Thing or not.

  My name is Madeleine Maxwell. I shed the name Madeleine along with my childhood. Unlike Tim and Kal, I’m not tall, slender, and blonde. I’m short, ginger and, while not exactly fat, Leon Farrell, in a breathless and tangled moment, once described me as having ‘ a great deal of barely-restrained exuberance in areas above and below the waist’. I did challenge him on that, but since by then he’d lost the ability to speak, and seconds later, I lost the ability to hear, whatever he did mean remains unclear.

  Back in the pod, Kal watched me as I sipped my wine.

  ‘So, new challenges ahead for all of us. And you, Max, as Chief Operations Officer, you’re going to have to start behaving yourself. No more getting drunk. Or sacked. Or stealing pods. Or seducing Chief Technical Officers. You’ll be Doctor Maxwell, now. You’ll have responsibilities.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ I said, taking off my stupid bonnet and dropping it on the floor beside my seat. ‘According to the Boss, I’ve been pretty well responsible for everything that’s happened at St Mary’s since I walked through the door. Do you want a top-up?’

  ‘And now, you have staff,’ she said, laughing at me.

  Yes, I had an assistant …

  After a lively night celebrating our promotions, (during which we added to the list of things for which I was responsible), I was having a very careful late breakfast.

  Mrs Partridge appeared at the table, soundlessly, as she always does. Perhaps it’s in her job spec. Wanted – PA to Director. Must be able to materialise at most inconvenient moments and look judgemental.

  ‘Dr Maxwell, I’d like to talk to you about your assistant.’

  I’d never had one before. I tried to find some enthusiasm.

  She said, ‘I wonder if you remember David Sands.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ I said. ‘He’s the trainee who was involved in that road accident just outside Rushford. Is he out of hospital now?’

  ‘He is, and has been for several months. He’s ready to return to St Mary’s – is keen to return, in fact. But he’ll never be an historian now. He accepts this, not easily, but he’s a boy of great intelligence and character. The final decision is yours, of course, but it occurred to me he would make a very suitable assistant. Would you like to meet him?’

  ‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘When?’

  ‘No time like the present.’ She stepped aside.

  David Sands was in a wheelchair. I turned in my seat and held out my hand. ‘Mr Sands.’

  ‘Dr Maxwell.’

  ‘I’ll leave you for a moment,’ said Mrs Partridge and disappeared to wherever she goes.

  The two of us looked at each other. His hair was shorter than usual for an historian because he wouldn’t need the traditional ‘ one style fits all centuries’ look and his thin face showed lines of strain and pain.

  I tried to remember how job interviews went.

  ‘Tell me why you’re exactly what I need.’

  ‘I’m efficient and intelligent. I have my doctorate just like you. I know how this place works. I know who to go to for what. I can take a ton of work off your shoulders. I can perform tasks before you even know you need them done. I know how you like your tea and I’ve got an endless supply of knock-knock jokes.’

  He had his doctorate. He could go and work at the University of Thirsk, at a job commensurate with his qualifications, but like the rest of us, St Mary’s was in his blood and he’d rather be an assistant here than a higher paid something else somewhere else.

  I was mystified. ‘How do you get around the building?’

  ‘Oh, that’s not a problem. I go up and down in the heavy goods lift.’

  I frowned. ‘That doesn’t seem right.’

  ‘No, it’s OK. Professor Rapson is usually in there with something interesting and we have some good chats. He’s going to try and raise my speed limit.’

  ‘You’re going to let Professor Rapson tinker with your chair? You’ll probably go into orbit. What sort of idiot are you?’

  ‘I’m hoping I’m the idiot who works for you, Dr Maxwell.’

  ‘So am I. You sound too good to be true. What’s your position on chocolate?’

  ‘You can never have enough,’ he said, pulling a handful of miscellaneous chocolate bars from mysterious depths.

  ‘You’re hired,’ I said. ‘Starting now.’

  Mrs Partridge appeared and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Don’t say a word.’

  She smirked and left.

  So, that’s what I had to go back to. Promotion, my own office, and an assistant with the world’s biggest collection of knock-knock jokes. I’d need him. I had a big assignment to plan. Last year we had acquired a collection of Shakespeare sonnets and a perfectly genuine, previously-unknown Shakespeare play entitled The Scottish Queen. Unfortunately, in this play, a careless 16th century executed the wrong sovereign and Mary Stuart, the Tartan Trollop, went on to unite Scotland and England, and apparently change the course of History. As soon as I got back and washed the Whitechapel grime from my hair, I’d have to get to grips with that. My future was looking good.

  Wrong.

  ‘Are we all set?’

  ‘Yes, let’s get back.’

  I dropped my muff on the console, smoothed my clothes, and patted my hair tidy. Historians never go back looking scruffy. Sometimes we go back dead, but even then, we always make sure we look good. Kal initiated the countdown, and the world went white.

  Moments later, we were back at St Mary’s. There were a few people around the hangar, but I guessed the majority were in the bar. We had a bit of a do planned for her. Kal operated the decontamination system to dispose of any nasty little Victorian germs, and we waited for the blue glow to subside. She was watching the screen and shutting things down.

  With probably the only stroke of good luck we had that night, I was looking towards the door, directly at my muff, so I saw it happen. I thought afterwards, it would have been so easy to miss such a tiny thing. We would have blithely opened the door, and who knows what would have been unleashed upon the world, and it would all have been our fault.

  The muff moved.

  Just slightly.

  All by itself – it moved.

  I was looking directly at it. Kal, too, had spotted it from the corner of her eye. Just for a second, I couldn’t think at all and then it hit me like a demolition ball. The only explanation possible. I felt my blood drain.

  Something else was here. Something was in here with us. Unbelievably, something we couldn’t see was in here with us. Something that was so eager to get out of the door that it had made the tiniest, clumsy mistake. We were not alone in this pod. We’d brought something back with us.

  Casually, I turned my head to look at Kal. She was white to the lips. I’d never seen her look like that. She was deathly afraid. And if Kal was afraid, then so was I.

  Something was in here with us and no one was getting out alive.

  Chapter Three

  People think we historians are lightweights. They think we whizz up and down the timeline, document a couple of battles or the odd revolution, swan back to St Mary’s, and spend the night in the bar. To some extent, that’s true. However, when it goes wrong for us, it really goes wrong. I remembered my friend and fellow-trainee, Kevin Grant, killed on his very first mission. Or Anne-Marie Lower sitting on the floor of her pod, blank-eyed and covered in blood, as her partner died in her arms. But this was the worst thing that could happen. Worse than death because our end was not going to be quick and it was not going to be easy.

  We were contaminated.

  It’s not supposed to happen. Pods are not supposed to be able to jump with any foreign objects on board. If ever we inadvertently brought something into the pod then it just wouldn’t jump. Simple as that. God knows how this had happen
ed. However, happen it had and we were really in the shit. The rules were very clear. No one was getting out of this pod. Ever.

  And we couldn’t take him back. History states very clearly that Mary Kelly was his last victim. After tonight, he vanished. And now we knew why. So we couldn’t jump back to Whitechapel and just kick him out to continue his reign of terror. Even if we could, we wouldn’t.

  I looked at Kal, who had obviously come to exactly the same conclusion as me. She gave me a small, sad smile, and after only the briefest pause, said lightly, ‘Would you do the honours please, Max?’ and slipped her hands into her muff.

  I activated the external speaker together with the internal cameras so they could see what was going on. Whatever was in here with us mustn’t know that we knew, so I said slowly and calmly, ‘Attention, please. This is Pod Five. This is Pod Five. Code Blue. Code Blue. Code Blue. I say again, this is Pod Five declaring a Code Blue. Authorisation Maxwell, five zero alpha nine eight zero four bravo. This is not a drill.’ I sat back leaving the mike open.

  ‘Balls to the wall, Max,’ said Kal softly and stood up. I got to my feet as well and we both moved casually, oh so casually, to the door, where we turned, to face back into the pod, backs protected, shoulder to shoulder. And much good it would do us.

  She drew herself up and said commandingly, ‘Show yourself. We know you’re here. Show yourself.’

  It wasn’t invisible. But there are ways of not being seen. Something changed in our perception. Like staring at those 3D coloured dot pictures and suddenly you realise you’re looking at a giraffe riding a bike. Nothing changes, but suddenly you can see it.

  We saw it now.

  It was tall and bony. Man-shaped. An unhealthy grey-white pallor. A bloodless thing. Damp skin glistened in the harsh light of the pod. I thought of a white slug, except slugs are fleshy. This thing had no flesh on it anywhere. Huge hands, big as shovels, with thick, yellow nails were caked with Mary Kelly’s dried blood. Long arms hung loosely at his sides, reaching to his knees, palms turned backwards. The eyes were dark and hidden within creases of moist skin. They reflected nothing – light was captured, but not reflected. A one-way entrance to something unspeakable. The proportions of its face were all wrong. The too-big mouth was half way up its face. The chin was long, pointed, and not symmetrical. The nose was not central but set off to one side. There was no septum. This was something that had been put together wrong. I could smell bad earth. My stomach clenched. I clutched my stun gun in one hand and pepper spray in the other, but my defiance was only for show. This was the thing known as Jack the Ripper and his record spoke for itself. There was no escape for us. This was going to be bad.