by Jason Ayres
Charlie was watching from the far end of the tunnel about 50 metres away, peering around the entrance in an attempt not to be spotted. He couldn’t hear what the police officers were saying at this distance, but could see that they had stopped at almost the exact point where the entrance to the Time Bubble was located.
He looked at his watch. It was 2.07pm. If Josh was about to make his reappearance it would happen right in front of them. There was no way they would be able to explain that. He would need to think fast.
Back at the centre of the tunnel Hannah was examining the walls and the ground closely but could see nothing.
“I was walking exactly past this point when those boys disappeared.” Hannah looked vainly hoping to spot some small clue, but ended up perplexed and disappointed. She knew there was something going on here but could not come up with a rational explanation, and it was eating away at her.
“There’s nothing here, Hannah. I think you are just going to have to forget about it. Come on, let’s get back to the station.”
“I don’t want to forget about it. Something’s going on here and I want to know what.”
Charlie watched them arguing. It was almost 2.09pm. There was nothing else for it. He would have to create a diversion. He stepped into the mouth of the tunnel and walked towards them.
Hannah looked up and spotted him, a hint of recognition spreading across her face. “Adrian!” she exclaimed, “that’s one of the boys who disappeared.”
Adrian looked up and recognised one of the two boys he’d spoken to the previous evening.
“Yes, that’s him alright. There’s no sign of his mate, though.”
As Charlie hoped, they walked up the tunnel towards him. He thought about turning and running but decided that would be a mistake. It would be almost like admitting he was guilty of something and they knew what he looked like. Even if he got away it wouldn’t be that difficult to find him. The last thing he wanted was to be hauled off to the station for questioning.
There was nothing else he could do but to try and bluff it out. So he walked forward towards them, and, as he had hoped, they continued to walk away from the Time Bubble towards him.
“Excuse me”, began Hannah. “Didn’t I see you in here last night?”
“Maybe”, mumbled Charlie, in a non-committal manner.
“There’s no “maybe” about it, son”, interjected Adrian. “I spoke to you and your mate last night. And if I recall correctly I said I didn’t want to see you hanging around this tunnel again. Yet here you are.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Hannah, getting straight to the point.
“I have to come through here. I live on the new estate!” protested Charlie. “This is the quickest route home from school.” He felt pretty happy with this reply. It was the truth, after all and if they checked his address they would find that he was telling the truth.
They must have read his mind as Adrian’s response to this was “What’s your name and address?”
Charlie gave them his details. What harm could it do, after all? He hadn’t done anything wrong. Afterwards Hannah continued to question him. “I could have sworn you just vanished last night right in front of me.”
Charlie thought quickly. “I don’t remember that. You just walked past us.” Whilst he was talking he glanced at his watch. It was 2.12pm. Josh had not reappeared. He figured that he probably wasn’t going to. His glance at his watch didn’t go unnoticed.
“We’re not keeping you, are we?” asked Adrian. And then he added, “Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“It’s a study period”, answered Charlie. “I was just heading home to do some revision.”
Adrian put on his stern face and in a firm voice replied, “In that case, I suggest you get yourself home right away. And remember, this is a thoroughfare, not a social club. If I find you loitering around here again, you’ll be charged with obstruction. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly”, replied Charlie, and he walked off in the direction of home.
Once he was out of earshot, Hannah turned back to Adrian. “You know we really shouldn’t have let him go so easily. I wanted to ask him a few more questions. I’m still not happy about any of this.”
“Questions about what though?” he replied. “The lad’s done nothing wrong. You’ve had a funny turn in the tunnel and you’re trying to blame it on somebody else. We need to draw a line under this now and get back to what we’re supposed to be doing. What do you think Kent would have to say if he knew about all of this?”
An image came into Hannah’s head of Kent ranting and raving at her. It wasn’t something she really wanted to experience again anytime soon. Reluctantly she conceded that there was nothing else that they could do, so they turned and walked back into town.
Charlie had no intention of heading home just yet. He gave them time to get clear and then turned around and headed back towards school, mulling over what to do next. He thought back to the calculations they had done that morning.
If the Time Bubble was consistent with what they had experienced so far, he knew that the only possibility was that Josh could be inside for three, six or twelve hours. He had failed to appear at the appointed times of 11.09am and 2.09pm for the first two possibilities so it was almost certain he would emerge at 8.09pm. If he didn’t show up then, Charlie was going to start getting extremely worried.
Unfortunately he was not going to be able to be around at 8.09pm. There was no way he was missing out on the date with Kaylee, even if Lauren would be tagging along. He had waited a long time for this chance and he wasn’t going to waste it just to be at the tunnel.
Besides, why did he need to be there anyway? It wasn’t going to change anything. He’d wait until just after 8.09pm and then try and ring him – yes, that’s what he’d do. Josh wouldn’t mind.
He was happy with that plan; he’d convinced himself it was the right thing to do. Now he just needed to come up with a plausible reason for Josh’s absence that Lauren would accept. She wasn’t the sort of person to have the wool pulled over her eyes. It was probably best to be consistent with what he’d already said. Josh was ill. He would just elaborate on that a bit.
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It was 3.30pm when Charlie met up with Kaylee and Lauren in the Year 12 common room. The only other person there was Daniel, who was eating a Twix and flicking through a copy of “Jungle” magazine.
Kaylee looked more beautiful than ever. Charlie noticed that she had changed her clothes since that morning and was now wearing a pale yellow summer-like dress – which looked fantastic, even if it was October. She must have gone home to change especially for the date.
“Where’s Josh?” piped up Lauren right away, her dark bob of hair swishing around her cheeks as she turned towards him.
“He can’t come, Lauren”, replied Charlie. “He really wanted to but he’s really sick. He’s been throwing up all day. Reckons it was something he ate.”
“Well, he must be bad if he’s missing out on a date with me. Because that’s not all he’s going to be missing out on, if you know what I mean”, she replied, flirtatiously.
Dan had clearly been eavesdropping, as at this point he tore away his gaze from a picture of a semi-naked actress who had recently been in one of the big soaps and decided to join in the conversation.
“What date?” he enquired.
Kaylee opened her mouth to answer and instantly regretted it. “Oh, me and Lauren were going to the cinema on a double date with Charlie and Josh. But Josh can’t make it.”
“Oh really?” asked Dan, the cogs in his brain whirring rapidly. “Well…maybe I could fill in for him. Fancy it, Lauren?”
Lauren did not. “Quite frankly, Dan, I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last man on earth.”
“Why not? It’s because I’m fat, isn’t it? You can’t discriminate against me because of that. There are new laws against that sort of thing now, don’t you know? It’s called
being fattist.”
“You do talk the most utmost bollocks, Dan, do you know that? I’ll tell you why I won’t go out with you. It’s because you’re rude, you’re obnoxious, you’ve got nothing nice to say about anybody, you’re completely self-obsessed, you eat like a pig and you read filth like that”, she said, pointing at the magazine in his hand.
“Well you can’t stop me tagging along. I was thinking of going to the cinema tonight anyway.”
“Not with us you’re not. Come on, Charlie, come on, Kaylee, we’re out of here.”
Lauren grabbed her bag, and stomped off, with Kaylee and Charlie trailing along in her wake.
By the time they’d reached town, Lauren had come up with a Plan B. They were standing close to the cinema entrance next to the bus station where various buses were lined up waiting to depart. “Is he following us, Charlie?” she asked.
“I can’t see him”, replied Charlie. “But you know what Dan’s like. There’s nothing to stop him following us down here. He’s probably stopped off at Tesco’s for some Pick ‘n’ Mix, knowing him.”
“He’s an arsehole. I’m not having him spoiling our evening. Listen, I’ve got an idea how we can make sure he can’t catch up with us.”
“What’s that, Lauren?” asked Kaylee, wondering what her friend was plotting now. Kaylee had not said much since they left the school, which wasn’t surprising really. Lauren had been letting her feelings about Dan vent in rather colourful language the whole way, and the others had not had the chance to get a word in edgeways.
“We never said which cinema we were going to. Come on”, she urged them as she jumped aboard the number 400 bus bound for Oxford.
“I haven’t told my mum what time I’ll be home yet, Lauren. She will probably have started cooking the tea by now”, said Kaylee.
“Text her. She won’t mind. We’re sixteen, for goodness’ sake. We can do what we want.”
Kaylee and Charlie looked at each other and, with a shrug of the shoulders in unison, they jumped aboard the bus.
Chapter Seven
Andy emerged from the front door into the pale late autumn sunshine. The sun was growing weaker every day now and he didn’t have to wince at the brightness the way he always did when he came out of the pub during the summer months.
Pausing to light a cigarette, he set off down the main street of the pretty market town towards his next destination. It was quite a walk to the next pub, far longer than it used to be.
Many of his favourite old watering holes had closed down over the previous couple of years. The pub right in the middle of the street which would have been his next stop had been the most recent to close. To the delight of the town’s residents it had recently reopened as a McDonald’s.
He reflected on his day so far. He reckoned he was in with a chance with the barmaid. In fact he was so confident he had asked her if she fancied coming for a drink at The Red Lion when she finished her shift. She had given a non-committal reply, but he was convinced that she fancied him.
In his drink-fuelled stupor he had imagined himself to have been the life and soul of the pub, amusing her with his witty jokes, anecdotes and informed opinions. Most of these had come directly from The Sun, on everything from politics to the latest series of ITV’s big blockbuster talent show.
In the case of the latter, he should know. He’d been on it many moons ago as he never ceased telling people. In fact he’d repeated the story about six times to the barmaid during the afternoon.
He couldn’t remember repeating himself any more than she could remember seeing him on the show. Even if she had seen him all those years ago she would only have been about six years old, and he was unrecognisable from the man he had been back then.
Needless to say, Andy’s illusions that she might in some way be interested in him were well wide of the mark. His witty jokes had not been witty at all. They had been tired, old, sexist and racist. There was a tangible sigh of relief all round from the staff and customers when he eventually set off to “catch up with friends”, as he described it at the Red Lion.
Leaves were falling thick and fast from the horse chestnut trees that lined the recently pedestrianised High Street. He thought about going into McDonald’s for something to eat but he didn’t have that much cash left on him. Money spent on food meant less money for drink.
He often ran out of money in the pub and would resort to badgering people to try and get one through various ways and means. If a DJ arrived at the pub to set up, Andy would walk out to his van with him and offer to carry some of the equipment in. If the DJ was too polite to say no, he’d carry in one speaker and then ask for a pint for being the “roadie.” In other, more desperate times he’d go around and hoover up any abandoned drinks, or even steal them when somebody went to the toilet.
This behaviour hadn’t gone unnoticed and he was already persona non grata in many of the pubs. Ye Olde Chapel still tolerated him because they more or less let anyone in, and he could still drink in the Red Lion because he used to be mates with the landlord who hadn’t the heart to bar him.
So, he strolled on, past estate agents, charity shops and bookies. He had been quite partial to a bet in times past when beer money wasn’t so tight, and thought about popping in to put a fiver on a horse. He looked through the large glass windows of one of the betting shops, the middle of three in a row, all from different firms.
There were very few people in there. He could see a gaggle of men gathered around one of the roulette machines in a depressingly familiar huddle, and the man with the beard he had seen in the pub earlier, still tapping away on his calculator. He decided against it. He still had enough cash for three pints and he didn’t want to risk it.
There was a chill wind beginning to blow and Andy felt it even through the warm hazy glow the beer had given him. He zipped up his jacket and wandered on towards the Red Lion.
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Moving at about the same speed as Andy, the number 400 bus crawled painfully slowly towards the traffic lights at the end of St Giles in Oxford. It was rush hour and the traffic, congested at the best of times in Oxford, was queued up in both directions.
Lauren, Kaylee and Charlie had grabbed the back seat on the top deck and enjoyed the forty minute trip, during which they had indulged in some light-hearted banter. Lauren had sat in-between Kaylee and Charlie, taking the pressure off a bit so Charlie was feeling pretty relaxed, all things considered. He couldn’t help wondering about Josh, though.
Kaylee looked out of the window, recalling many fun times she’d had at the annual fair that took place here every September. She loved coming into Oxford. Everything about the place brought back memories of when her gran used to bring her here as a small child.
From the hustle and bustle of Cornmarket Street to the sights and smells of the covered market, it all filled her with nostalgia, even at the tender age of sixteen. Her gran had died three years ago and she always thought of her when she came here.
She wasn’t that five-year-old anymore, though, walking through the covered market, holding her gran’s hand. She was older now, and her mind was on other things, namely Charlie. Over the last few days she’d had a chance to think about how she really felt, and she had come to realise she had strong feelings for him.
Secretly inside, she’d loved all the things he had said to her in his emotional outpouring on Saturday night. It was the way he had gone about it that had been the problem.
Had he said all these things to her alone and in private, she had no doubt that they would be together now, but loudly and drunkenly in front of all their friends had been an embarrassment. Perhaps tonight would be the night they could put all of that right.
“Are we going to be late for the film?” asked Charlie.
“What time is it now?” asked Lauren, fiddling about with her phone.
“Just gone half past five”, replied Charlie, without even having to look at his watch. He had become acutely aware of time ove
r the past few days.
“No – we’re fine”, said Lauren, looking up from her phone. “I’ve just checked the website and it doesn’t start until 6.30.”
Finally the bus made it through the traffic lights and turned right into Beaumont Street past the famous Randolph Hotel where they could see people having tea and cakes through the window.
As they headed towards the bus stop the light was beginning to fade outside. The nights were drawing in rapidly now.
“At last!” exclaimed Lauren. “So – we’ve got an hour. Fancy getting a McDonald’s?”
“Sounds good to me”, replied Kaylee.
“Me too”, said Charlie.
The three friends alighted from the bus and headed up towards Cornmarket Street. Charlie was walking next to Kaylee now and tried to pluck up the courage to hold her hand, but he held back for fear of rejection. There would be plenty of time for that later on.
Now he just needed to make sure that Lauren didn’t sit in-between them in the cinema.
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Back at the police station Kent was feeling bored and fed up. Absolutely nothing of interest had happened all day, as usual. He was itching to get out of the place and down to the pub.
It was nearly clocking-off time and he could see Adrian and Hannah in the open-plan area in front of his office getting ready to leave. He opened the door, strode out purposefully and put on the most jovial manner he could muster.
“Hey troops, good day?” he asked, rather overenthusiastically.
“Not bad, sir”, responded Adrian half-heartedly, who also hadn’t had a particularly enthralling day.
Hannah didn’t say anything at all. She shared their lack of enthusiasm. The three of them were all suffering with the same problem. Nothing ever happened in their town. The height of excitement for her and Adrian on an average day was issuing spot fines for people dropping cigarette butts.
