by Alex Scarrow
‘Are you not done yet?’ he asked.
Maddy mut ered under her breath. ‘It’s al these damned laces and hooks and but ons and things. How the heck did women manage to dress themselves back then?’
He turned his head a lit le to look up the al ey. It seemed to open on to a busy thoroughfare. He saw several horse-drawn carts clat er by, and men dressed like him: formal grey morning coats, but oned waistcoats, highcol ared shirts, with top hats, at caps and bowler hats. Very much like the bet er-dressed men in Cork might have worn on a Sunday morning. The clothes they’d found in the back room appeared to be perfectly authentic. There’d been another couple of dusty costumes in there. Sal had said something about them being for the other back-up drop-point – another time, another place.
drop-point – another time, another place.
‘Oh, dammit … this’l have to do,’ tut ed Maddy irritably.
‘Can I turn round now?’
‘Yes … but I look a total doof.’
He turned round. His eyes widened.
‘What?’ she gasped suspiciously. ‘What is it? What’ve I got wrong?’
‘Nothing! It’s nothing … it’s just …’
Maddy scowled at him beneath the wide-brimmed sun hat, topped with a plume of white ostrich feathers. Her slim neck was framed by decorative lace that descended down the front of a tightly drawn and intricately embroidered bodice. Her waist seemed impossibly thin, as the gown ared out beneath and tumbled down to the ground, modestly covering any sign of her legs. She put her hands – covered in spotless elbow-length white gloves – on her hips. ‘Liam?’
He shook his head. ‘You look so … so …’
‘Spit it out!’
‘Like … wel , like a lady, so you do.’
For a moment he thought she was going to step forward and punch his arm, like she was prone to do. Instead, her cheeks coloured ever so slightly. ‘Uh … real y?’
‘Aye.’ Liam smiled at her. ‘And me? What about me?’
Maddy grinned. ‘Wel , you look like an idiot.’
Liam pul ed the top hat o his head. ‘Ah, it’s that, isn’t it? Makes me ears stick out like a pair of jug handles.’
She laughed. ‘Don’t worry about it, Liam. Obviously it’s She laughed. ‘Don’t worry about it, Liam. Obviously it’s the fashion over here. You won’t be the only person wearing one.’
‘It was mostly at caps and forage caps back home. You tried wearing a top hat or a bowler, you were asking for some joker to try an’ knock it o .’
She pointed at him, ignoring the quip, her smile replaced with her let’s-get-down-to-business frown. ‘What time have you got on your clock?’
Liam pul ed the ornate timepiece out of his waistcoat pocket. ‘Seven minutes after eleven in the morning.’
‘OK, we should get a move on. The return window here is in four hours’ time.’
‘Right you are. How far is it?’
‘Not far, I think. It’s on to Merrimac Street, then up Fourth Street to Mission Street … short walk up that on to Second Street. Ten minutes … at a guess?’
Liam stepped forward away from the brick wal , the tumbled crates of rubbish and the stench of rot ing sh. With a broad cock-sided grin he o ered his arm. ‘Shal we, ma’am?’
Her face softened and she threaded one white gloved hand around it. ‘Oh, absolutely, Mr Darcy. A pleasure, I’m sure.’
They emerged out of the gloom of the al ey on to Merrimac Street and immediately Maddy found herself gasping.
My God. The realization nal y hit her. I’m actual y standing IN history.
standing IN history.
Merrimac Street was busy with mid-morning foot and wheeled tra c, mostly horse-drawn carts ferrying goods up from the wharf down the far end. She could make out steam ships lined up against the docks, l ing the blue sky with columns of coal smoke and steam, and the churning business of freight coming o or being loaded on.
‘Awesome,’ she giggled with delight, ‘this is just like being in a movie. Just like the beginning of Titanic …’
He looked at her, disgusted. ‘They made a movie about it?’The smile on her face slipped and became a guilty grimace.
Liam tut ed and sighed. ‘Good people died an’ al … for what? So they can become part of a ickering peepshow a hundred years later?’
She shrugged. ‘Uh, s’pose … but it was pret y good, though. Fantastic special e –’
His sideways scowl silenced her.
‘Never mind.’
They turned left on to the road, heading up it towards Fourth Street, dodging several piles of horse manure along the way. Fourth Street was a lit le busier, but nothing compared to Mission Street. The road was a broad thoroughfare, a hundred feet wide, thick with carts and pedestrians and a tram line that rat led with trams laden with passengers inside and hanging precariously on the back, dinging their bel s to clear the track ahead.
‘Oh my God, this is so amazing!’ she gushed.
‘Oh my God, this is so amazing!’ she gushed. Liam tugged her arm. ‘Shhh … you’re sounding like a tourist.’
Mission Street was anked with ve-and six-storey brick buildings, warehouses, o ces, factories, banks and legal rms. She caught sight of a tal building dominating the skyline – fteen, perhaps twenty storeys high that looked like a smal version of the Empire State Building.
‘I didn’t know they had skyscrapers back then … uhh …
I mean back now!’
Liam nodded. ‘Nothing like this in Ireland.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘And you’re tel ing me al this gets total y destroyed?’
‘Uh-huh. Tomorrow morning, April eighteenth, the great Californian earthquake. According to our history database, much of the downtown area is destroyed by the quake … and then the resulting re destroys most of what was left in this area … the fourth and fth districts.’
‘Jeeeez … that’s a real shame, so it is.’ Liam locked his brows for a moment. ‘Hang on! Strikes me as a bit stupid that the agency has picked here and now to store our supplies if it’s about to be brought crashing down.’
‘Wel , duh!’ said Maddy, making a face and rol ing her eyes. ‘Think about it! It makes perfect sense!’ She looked at him as if he’d just put on a pair of shoes the wrong way round. ‘Liam, I thought Foster said you’re meant to be smart?’
He pouted his lip, feigning hurt. ‘Wel , Miss Smarty Pants, you’re obviously itching to tel me something, so get Pants, you’re obviously itching to tel me something, so get on with it.’
She sighed. ‘It’s perfect, because the bank vault where our replacement engineered foetuses are located wil be completely destroyed in the re. Everything. Al the safe deposit boxes, their contents, al the client paperwork …
everything. No paper trail.’
Liam grinned. ‘Ah, very clever.’
‘Exactly.’
The hubbub on Mission Street was added to by the noisy clat er of a sput ering engine. Its noise blot ed out everything as it slowly approached them. They nal y saw the vehicle rol ing down the middle of the street on imsy spoked wheels, fol owing a man on foot waving a red warning ag before him.
‘Wow! I didn’t know they had cars then!’ Maddy shouted in his ear.
He shook his head. ‘Now who’s being dumb! Of course we did!’ He watched the vehicle slowly rat le past, steered by a man wearing a cap and goggles. Beside him sat a woman sporting a cloud of ostrich feathers above her head, her gloved hands clasped over her ears at the cacophony.
‘Now I know that’s an Oldsmobile Model R,’ added Liam as the vehicle nal y turned right o Mission Street and the laboured clat er of internal combustion al owed them to talk easily once more. ‘There were quite a few of those things dashing about Cork – yes, even Cork – when I left.’
left.’She shook her head. ‘Hardly dashing.’
They walked on another few minutes in silence, Maddy enjoying playing the lady in her own period-piece Hol ywood movie and Liam feeling like thi
s was something of a trip home for him. Back to his time, back to a place where he could talk easily with anyone and not be made to feel like a complete moron for not knowing what a digicam was, or that Seven-Up wasn’t some kind of a bal game, or that a Snickers Bar wasn’t some sort of sleazy nightclub.
‘This is it,’ Maddy nal y said, pointing to a narrow side street. ‘There … Minna Street.’
They crossed the wide thoroughfare, dodging a tram clanging its way through the bustle of pedestrian tra c and sidestepping several more steaming hil ocks of horse manure. They stood in the mouth of the narrow road, only two carts wide and relatively quiet.
‘And that’s the building we want,’ she said, pointing to a formal-looking frontage of brick and granite. ‘Union Commercial Savings Company,’ she added. ‘According to Foster’s “how to” manual, this is the bank’s only premises. After the earthquake, the re destroys this building and everything inside it. The company was no more. As if it never existed.’ She looked at him. ‘You see? Perfect.’
‘And al our Baby Bobs are in some sort of safe down in its basement?’
‘That’s what Foster says.’
Liam frowned. ‘So, I’m being dumb again … but if Liam frowned. ‘So, I’m being dumb again … but if there’s a whole load of those lit le foetus things down there in a safe somewhere, what’s keeping them alive?
Would they not die and sort of go o ? Is there a refrigerating device down there?’
‘You’l see.’
CHAPTER 6
1906, San Francisco
Maddy strode down Minna Street towards the bank. ‘Come on.’Liam was struggling to keep up with her. ‘So, who put them in this bank? And when did they do it?’
She reached the front step of the Union Commercial Savings Company and stopped. ‘OK, Liam, just a second
…’ She pul ed her glasses and a scrap of paper covered with scribbled notes in her handwriting out of her handbag.
‘Oh Jay-zus … you brought notes back with you? Isn’t that not al owed? You know? Contamination of time an’
al ?’Maddy looked around the quiet street guiltily. ‘I know, I know … but there was way too much to remember. I was worried I’d forget something.’
‘Foster would throw a t if he knew you’d brought notes back here,’ said Liam.
‘Wel , he won’t, wil he?’ she mut ered impatiently.
‘Because he bailed out and left us to cope on our own.’
Liam shrugged at that.
She put her glasses on. ‘OK, so, my name is Miss Emily Lassiter. You’re my brother.’
Lassiter. You’re my brother.’
‘Do I get a name too?’
She sighed. ‘Yes … uhh … here it is, Leonard Lassiter. Al right?’
He nodded.
She scanned the notes further, digesting the information for a few moments before tucking them back in her bag and removing her glasses. ‘Al right, I think I’ve got it al .’
She looked at him. ‘You don’t have to say anything, OK?
Just go along with whatever I say.’
‘Wil do.’
She took a deep breath, then pushed the double door to the bank inwards. They stepped on to a tiled oor that echoed their footsteps around a hal , dark with oak panels. Ahead of them were half a dozen ornate mahogany desks, each with softly glowing green ceramic desk lamps. Behind each one sat a bank tel er, al but one busy dealing in hushed, respectful tones with customers.
Maddy led the way towards the unoccupied tel er, a young man with hair slicked down in a rigid centre parting and a careful y clipped and waxed moustache.
‘Uhh … ’scuse me?’ she said.
The young man looked up at her and smiled
charmingly. ‘Good morning, ma’am. How can I help you?
‘I’d like to speak with a Mr … uh … Mr Leighton. He works here, I think.’
‘Oh, I’m certain he works here, ma’am,’ said the young man. He tapped a wooden name-holder on the desk. ‘I’m Harold Leighton, you see? Please, wil you take a seat?’
Harold Leighton, you see? Please, wil you take a seat?’
Maddy smiled and slumped down in the seat a lit le too casual y then did her best to quickly recover her lady-like demeanour. ‘Much … uh … much obliged,’ she said as demurely as she could manage.
‘Now, ma’am, how could I assist you?’
She took a breath, hoping she was going to get this right and not sound half as nervous as she felt. ‘My family has a safe deposit box with your bank and I wish to make a withdrawal.’
‘Certainly, ma’am. The account is in the name of?’
‘Joshua Waldstein Lassiter.’
Harold Leighton’s eyebrows raised.
Her heart skipped. ‘Oh … is there a problem?’
‘Not a problem as such, ma’am. It’s just … I stil have the paperwork here on my desk.’
Maddy shook her head. ‘Paperwork?’
‘The paperwork set ing up the safe deposit account. Joshua Waldstein Lassiter, I presume he is your …?’
‘Uh? … My uh … yes, that’s right, my father.’
‘Wel , your father was here not more than an hour ago. Actual y, I dealt with him myself. He brought a very nice jewel ery box with him and we carried it down to the safe room and put it in a deposit box together … as I say, not more than an hour ago.’
‘Oh,’ was al she managed to say after a few moments.
‘Yes, wel , that’s quite right.’
‘And you wish to withdraw something from the safe deposit box already?’
deposit box already?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Wel … that is highly irregular.’
‘We’re a funny old family, us Lassiters,’ said Maddy, looking back over the chair. ‘Aren’t we, Liam?’
Liam stepped forward. ‘Oh yes, that we are, dear sister.’
He grinned at the tel er. ‘She sometimes cal s me Liam, although my name is in fact Leonard,’ he said, nudging the smal of her back.
Maddy mental y kicked herself for being such a dumbnuts.
‘You are brother and sister?’ Harold Leighton looked up at Liam. ‘And it seems you, sir, are Irish?’
‘Yes.’
‘But,’ he said, looking at Maddy, ‘it seems, ma’am, you’re not?’
‘I … uh …’ Maddy’s mouth apped uselessly. ‘Oh …’
‘I was brought up in Cork,’ cut in Liam. ‘My dear sister in California. Father likes to keep a home either side of the Atlantic, so he does.’
The young tel er cocked an eyebrow. ‘So it seems.’ He sighed and spread the bank account details out in front of him. ‘Wel , it appears your father did specify his children as fel ow signatories on the account, so … you, ma’am, I presume are Emily Lassiter?’
‘That’s correct,’ she replied.
‘For security reasons I have to ask you for the code word your father has put down here on this form to assure us you are in fact who you say you are.’
you are in fact who you say you are.’
‘Of course.’ She nodded. ‘It’s … it’s …’ She realized al of a sudden her mind had gone blank and cursed. The tel er’s jaw dropped open at her unladylike language. ‘Madam!’
Liam grinned sheepishly. ‘She’s spent time at sea. Picked up al sorts of dreadful language from the sailors, so she did. Father so hates her talking that way.’
‘Just a sec,’ said Maddy, fumbling in her handbag for her note. She quickly scanned her scribbled writing. ‘Ahh!
Here it is!’
She leaned forward over the desk. ‘The code word, Mr Leighton, is Hemlock.’
Leighton stared at her long and hard, suspicion clouding his young tel er’s eyes. Final y a cautious smile spread across his lips. ‘Yes, it is, Miss Lassiter. If you’l just sign here, I can take you down to the safe room.’
∗
The tel er spun a large brass wheel and slowly pul ed open the cast-i
ron door leading on to a smal room lined with numbered deposit boxes on three wal s. ‘Your safe deposit box is number three-nine-seven,’ he said, leading them to a locker with the number on its door. He inserted the key and twisted it once.
‘It is company policy, madam, sir, that I remain in the safe room while you inspect the contents of your deposit box. However, I shal remain over there by the door and I shal turn my back to al ow you a lit le privacy.’
Maddy nodded and smiled politely. ‘OK.’
Maddy nodded and smiled politely. ‘OK.’
She waited until Mr Leighton had crossed the room and was standing by the cast-iron door, casual y jangling the keys in one hand and examining his ngernails on the other.
‘Liam,’ she ut ered softly.
‘Yes?’
‘I think it’s best if you go talk to him, distract him. I don’t want him seeing anything he shouldn’t.’
He nodded. ‘Aye, you’re right.’ He wandered over and easily struck up a conversation with the young man while Maddy at ended to their business.
She pul ed the deposit box’s door open. The faint glow from the safe room’s overhead light showed her lit le of what was inside. Maddy pushed her hand into the darkness and almost immediately felt the side of a wooden box. She found a smal handle and pul ed it out. It was quite heavy, and as she hefted it out of the locker towards an inspection bench in the middle of the room, the young man cal ed out.‘Let me give you a hand with that, madam.’
‘I’m ne … I’m ne,’ she grunted.
‘Strong as an ox, so she is,’ Liam assured him. ‘She’l be al right.’ He resumed chat ing to Leighton, something about steam ships, from what she could hear. She studied the box. It certainly looked like a jewel ery box, about the size of a smal travel trunk, made of dark wood with silver buckles and ornate swirls along each side. She turned the box so that the upright lid would hide side. She turned the box so that the upright lid would hide what was inside from any prying eyes, and then slowly, careful y opened it.
‘Another box,’ she whispered. But this one was smooth, featureless, metal and cold to the touch.
Refrigerated. There had to be some kind of smal power unit or bat ery inside.
Her gloved ngers found a catch on the side and gently slid it back. Something inside the box clicked and the lid slowly raised with a barely audible hiss. A shal ow fog of nitrogen wafted out of the box revealing a row of eight glass tubes, each six inches long and a couple of inches wide. She eased one of the glass tubes out of its holder and, stil shielded by the lid of the jewel ery box, inspected it closely. Through the glass she could see the murky pink growth solution and the faint pale outline of a curled-up human foetus.
