Lay Down Your Hand

by Cherie Mitchell

  He sunk down onto the edge of the bed and gazed in wonder at that same small scrap of paper, that tiny love note containing Annie’s adoringly flowery words. He lifted the paper to his nostrils in the hopes of catching the faint smell of Annie’s scent, some tenuous link to her laughing and very much alive self, but time had dulled any fragrance it may have once held into bland nothingness.

  As impossible as it was to believe, his very own coat had found him again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It had taken him some time to regain his composure after finding Annie’s note. He was also at a loss as to how the coat he’d once so proudly owned was now back in his possession. Had it somehow skipped through time, just as he had done? He’d phoned Ramona to discuss it with her, but unfortunately he hadn’t been able to reach her. He’d left her a message but she still hadn’t returned his call and he was now ready to leave to complete the evening’s task.

  He walked out of the tube station and strode quickly through the grey drizzle to the destination bar. Tonight’s venue featured dark wood and red velvet seating rather than purple LED lights and glass tables, reminding Elliot of the taverns of old London that he was more familiar with. He saw Lani sitting at a table near the door when he walked in. She looked at him, probably to check if he was her date arriving, and then looked away again. She wore pink sparkly eyeshadow and a plain black top and pants this evening but her hair was as messy and wild as it had looked in her photo.

  He paid for his beer and went to sit at the table behind Lani. He could see her watching the door, checking each new person who walked in just as she’d done when he arrived. He glanced at the phone on the table in front of him: 3 minutes to 7. If Ben made it here in the next few minutes, his date would be unable to hold time against him.

  Seconds later, Ben burst through the door and took a moment to shake himself, much like a dog emerging from the river. Droplets of rain flew off his hair and he removed his glasses to wipe the lenses clear of fog and steam. Elliot craned his neck, interested to see what Lani thought of her date, but he could only see the back of her head from where he was sitting.

  Ben put his spectacles back on and peered myopically around the bar. The lighting was dim in here, atmospheric rather than illuminated, but Lani was close to the door and there was no reason why Ben shouldn’t be able to see her. Elliot heard Lani’s exasperated sigh as she stood up and pointedly waved at the man. “Hey, I’m over here.”

  His face lit up at once, boyish and eager, and he hurried across to join her. Without making a fuss or drawing attention to himself, Elliot switched to the seat at the other side of his table so he could eavesdrop on the couple.

  The conversation between Lani and Ben sounded stilted at first but they soon found a common interest in a favourite football team. Elliot twisted his era decoder around his wrist as the information flooded in. It seemed organised matches of the ball games he’d played as a boy in the slums were now commonplace and popular, to the point where people paid to go and watch them. Elliot and his friends had used a rag ball when it was available and anything else they could find when it wasn’t. He recalled enthusiastically kicking around a stone, a lump of brick, and even a grumpy old man’s piss-pot when the gentleman in question grew tired of their noise and threw it out the window at them. He felt a sudden, sharp pang of homesickness. He was a stranger here, with no friends unless he counted Ramona as one, and that was a little hard to do when she remained so standoffish and cool.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Lani turned to apologise after pushing her chair back and colliding with the back of his own chair. “Pardon me.” She gave him a brief smile before scooping up her handbag and walking quickly off towards the bathrooms.

  Elliot subtly turned sideways in his seat to sneak a look at Ben. He’d removed his coat and scarf and his hair was beginning to dry out. He looked comfortable and relaxed as he waited for his date to return. Again, Elliot’s mind drifted back to 1889. If a woman initiated a meeting with a stranger back then, no good could come of it. At best, people would think of the woman as a bold harlot and at worse… well, who knew how bad it could turn out? Not all men in Victorian England had manners, particularly when most people viewed women who ventured out without a male companion by her side as easy game and just asking for trouble.

  Lani returned from the bathroom and to Elliot’s astonishment, went immediately to the bar to buy a drink for herself and Ben. He would’ve never dreamed of allowing Annie to take the lead and order and pay for a drink for him, not that she would ever step one small foot inside a tavern of course. How had society changed so much, and was this drastic change necessarily a good thing? It was difficult for him to get his head around it. A woman should know her place. That system worked well enough for everyone back in his era and it seemed absurd that women themselves would choose a different manner of living.

  Ben thanked Lani for the drink when she carried it back to their table and set it down in front of him, leaving Elliot still shaking his head. At some point during the past one hundred years or more, everyday women had somehow started believing they could act like a watered-down version of Queen Victoria. It just wasn’t right.

  The couple went back to their conversation and Elliot sipped moodily on his beer. It was clear they were getting on well and at this stage, no input was required from him. Would it be any different when his assignment began in earnest? According to Ramona and Darcy the corporation, whoever they were, held information on a man they said was as evil as Jack the Ripper. Could a man as black-hearted as the Whitechapel Murderer engage pleasantly with a woman over a drink? Elliot did not believe that such a monster could wear a mask so cleverly constructed that it would allow him to pass himself off as a gentleman in anyone’s eyes.

  Lani bumped lightly against the back of Elliot’s chair again, nudging him out of his musings, and he realised the couple were leaving. He didn’t turn around, giving them time to exit the bar before he made his move. He intended to succeed in his mission tonight and to show Ramona and Darcy they had the right man for the job. For the love of Annie, he would be the one to stop another murderous man from taking the life of an innocent woman.

  He walked over to the door and looked outside without leaving the bar. Lani and Ben stood a short distance down the street, still talking beneath the light of a street lamp. The misty drizzle sparkled where it touched the wide beam of light. He lingered in the doorway, waiting for them to move on, and at last Ben strode away. Lani pulled her phone out of her handbag and looked at it before marching determinedly in the opposite direction, back past the doorway where Elliot waited. He thrust his hands into his coat pockets and ducked his head as she hurried past. The tube station was only a block away from here and he assumed that was where she was heading.

  Lani walked incredibly fast, almost jogging down the wet street ahead of him. Keeping his head down, Elliot stepped onto the footpath and hurried after her, making his own strides long rather than rushed. He didn’t want her to think he was chasing her and encourage a repeat of last night’s unexpected conversation with Amy.

  Lani reached the corner and pushed the pedestrian button, checking her phone again as she waited to cross the street. Elliot slowed his walk and pretended to look into the store windows. As soon as the green man logo flashed up on the other side of the street, Elliot quickly closed the distance between himself and Lani before walking on ahead for a short distance. At that point, he took out his own phone and pressed it to his ear, holding an imaginary conversation with a non-existent caller to allow Lani enough time to pass him again. The sign for the tube station entrance was now just a few steps ahead of them.

  Elliot allowed Lani to enter the station before striding in after her. His brief was to make sure she got on the train and it was imperative that he completed the task. She hurried down the steps to her platform and he casually followed, finding a spot to stand several metres away from her. He waited, pretending an ongoing interest in his phone, until her train
arrived and she boarded. She didn’t so much as glance at him. Grinning to himself and with his confidence in his tracking abilities now restored, he changed platforms and caught his own train home.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ramona had asked Elliot to meet her at a fast food burger bar alongside the river to discuss the outcome of his second test run. He parked his car in the parking space behind the heavily sign-written building and walked over to the door. He could see Ramona from here, her long hair gleaming blue-black under the artificial lights and a tray of wrapped and packaged food on the table in front of her. He was suddenly glad to see her, pleased to have the opportunity for a conversation with someone who knew a little about him. 2020 was an oddly isolating era for a man to find himself in, despite the vast number of people who crowded the streets.

  “Hi.” He slid into the booth seat opposite her with a grin.

  “Hey, you. How did the assignment go?” She put down her phone and pushed the tray of food towards him. “I hope you’re hungry because I ordered something of everything. Take your pick.”

  “Coffee?” he asked hopefully.

  “Ah, everything but coffee. There are a couple of sodas here though if you want to sample some.”

  He took one of the plastic cups from the tray. “The assignment went well. Lani didn’t notice me and I followed her until she boarded her train. I’ll assume she arrived safely home from there.”

  A smile twitched at the corner of Ramona’s mouth. “She did notice you. I received her report this morning.”

  Elliot’s earlier confidence evaporated. “She did?”

  “Yeah. Apparently sprinting past her on the pedestrian crossing was a bad move. You called too much attention to yourself. It might pay to delete that trick from your repertoire.”

  “And here I was thinking that I’d performed well.” He started to unwrap one of the warm, domed packages from the tray. “What’s this?”

  “Cheeseburger. By the way, she mentioned that she liked your coat.”

  He left the cheeseburger where it lay and leaned forward eagerly to tell her his news. “The coat! The coat is my own, the one I left hanging on Darcy’s coat stand. How is that possible?”

  Ramona looked doubtful as she unwrapped her own burger. “That’s highly unlikely, Elliot.”

  “I swear it’s true. There was small, personal item in the lining, a gift from Annie. It was still there.”

  “That’s crazy. I could tell the coat was vintage but I didn’t know it was that vintage. It just goes to show that they used to make things to last. Wait until I tell Darcy.”

  “So do you think it was merely a coincidence that I saw it in the charity shop?” He’d hoped for something more extraordinary than that.

  “How could it be anything but a coincidence? No one has yet invented anything smart enough to propel individual items of clothing through time.” She took a bite of her burger and nodded at his untouched food. “Eat it while it’s warm. This heavily manufactured food doesn’t hold its heat.”

  Determined to be contrary and not to do precisely what she told him to do, he poked a straw through the lid of his plastic cup and slurped at the liquid, feeling faintly repulsed by the lurid sweetness. “I think I prefer coffee.”

  “Coffee’s probably better for you too. Elliot, if anything out of the ordinary such as the coat incident happens to you again, you need to phone me immediately. I should know these things.”

  “Well, I can phone you but you don’t always answer your calls,” he said mildly. “I tried several times yesterday to get hold of you but I was unsuccessful.”

  Ramona’s cheeks turned pink and she hastily looked down to avoid his gaze. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Something came up.”

  He waited but she said nothing more. They ate their burgers in silence for several minutes. It was busier in here now, with a large crowd of noisy children and a couple of harried mothers at the table near the door and a growing crowd queued restlessly at the counter.

  Elliot looked out across at the river, which was clearly visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the restaurant. Barges and other water traffic made sedate trails through the water and a crane was lifting a bulky load onto a barge on the other side of the river. “It used to freeze over. They would hold fairs on the ice, with booths selling food and trinkets, and fun activities for the citizens to enjoy.”

  “What? The Thames?”

  “Yes. It was before my time but my grandmother used to reminisce about the frost fairs. She once saw an elephant walk across the ice and under the bridge. Well, naturally it didn’t walk of its own accord – someone led it across there.”

  “An elephant walking across the iced-over Thames?” She laughed, shaking her head in wonder. She looked like a different person when she laughed. Friendlier and more approachable. Elliot vowed to make her laugh as much as he could. At this stage, she was his only social contact and as such, she was worth trying to keep as a friend even if she could be somewhat moody and prone to clamming up just when the conversation got interesting. She also had such lovely eyes when she wasn’t frowning at him.

  “What do you do for fun, Ramona?” He meant it as a casual question, a way to keep the light-heartedness going, but the question seemed to catch her unawares.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Television, movies, funfairs – what do you do when you aren’t working?”

  She chewed thoughtfully on a french fry. “Those days are few and far between now but I used to like to ride my bike. There are some good cycle paths along the banks of the Thames.”

  His era decoder buzzed against his wrist and the word psychopath wound its way to the front of his brain, puzzling him. “Psychopaths along the banks of the Thames?”

  “Cycle paths, not psychopaths.”

  The band on his wrist buzzed again and he twisted it irritably. “My era decoder keeps telling me that you’re saying psychopath.”

  “It’s probably another glitch. I guess we should be pleased that there aren’t more of them. If we had more time on our side we could’ve spent longer fine tuning everything.” She screwed up her burger wrapping and dropped it on the tray. “Are you still hungry? I can get some more food if you like.”

  “No, I’m fine. I’ve eaten more in the short time that I’ve been here than I have in the last month.” He patted his stomach. “Starvation was a fact of life for many people back in the 1800s.”

  “Yes, we know you had your troubles. The difficulties you’ve already faced are an advantage for this task. You’re used to dealing with adversity and finding a way around it.”

  “Even if I made a couple of wrong moves when I was trailing Amy and Lani?” He made his eyes twinkle so she’d know he wasn’t taking the comment too seriously.

  She seemed to misinterpret his attempt at a joke. “Despite that. Don’t be so hard on yourself, Elliot. I know I’d be a quivering wreck if I was in your shoes.”

  He grinned. “Somehow I doubt that. Your self-containment wouldn’t allow it.”

  Her face softened and she grinned back, able to laugh at herself today. “Watch out. I might surprise you one day.” She abruptly scooped their rubbish onto the tray and stood up, the moment over. “Right, enough with the frivolity. Things are starting to get serious. Follow me back to my apartment and we’ll go over the brief for tomorrow night. Our mark is about to make his move and we have to stay one step ahead.”

  “Tomorrow night? Are you talking about the serial killer?”

  “Ssssh.” She quickly looked around but no one was paying them any attention amongst the noise and bustle of the restaurant. “We’re going to have to stop calling him that. Darcy suggested a nickname for the sake of the project. From now on whenever we discuss him, we’ll be referring to him as the Knave. You don’t need any other name for him.”

  Now she was speaking Elliot’s language. “The Knave? Like the Knave of Hearts, as you’d find in a deck of cards?”

  “Yes.” She ca
rried the tray over to the bins and he followed. She pushed the rubbish through the swing flap, added the empty tray to the small stack on top of the bins, and turned a pair of grave eyes upon him. “That’s exactly it. Our killer is the Knave, otherwise known as the Jack of Hearts.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ramona made coffee while Elliot read through the notes she’d given him. “Yell out if there’s anything you don’t understand. I know it’s a lot to take in.”

  “How do you know this much about him?” There were several pages of neatly printed notes here, along with a few diagrams and sketches.

  “You can call it the benefit of hindsight. That’s the information we’ve gathered by jumping forward in time, based on the assumption that you weren’t here to stop him from carrying out his killing spree. If the same scenario played out from tonight onwards, he would kill several women over the coming weeks before getting caught.”

  “But now that I here, none of these women will lose their lives?”

  “That’s the plan.” She passed him his coffee and the fragrant scent curled seductively around him. A bonny wench. “You’re here to change the course of the future.”

  “That’s a big task for one man, especially a simple chimney sweep.”

  “It is, but you wouldn’t be here if the corporation didn’t believe you were up to that task.”

  “Of course. I’m the preferred candidate.” He reshuffled the notes into a tidy pile. “Are you going to tell me what set me apart from the others? I’m genuinely interested to know.”

  “Your adaptability, your agility, and your common sense.” She studied his face for several seconds, as if weighing her words before she spoke them. “And your sorrow,” she said at last. “Your sorrow is a tangible part of you. You hold your sadness against your heart as if it were a shield.”

  A quick prickle of anger raced across his scalp. “How can that be an advantage? It doesn’t feel like an advantage when I am the owner of that heart, the man burdened with suffering through the pain of great loss.”