Why is Nothing Ever Simple?

by Jodi Taylor

  Copyright © 2019 Jodi Taylor

  The right of Jodi Taylor to be identified as the Author of

  the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  1

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be

  reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior

  permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in

  accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication – other than the obvious historical figures – are

  fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN 978 1 4722 6676 7

  Cover design and illustration by zoedrawsthings.co.uk

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  About the Book

  It’s Christmas at St Mary’s and time for the traditional illicit jump. Except this one is perfectly legal. It’s Major Guthrie’s last jump. To the Battle of Bannockburn, no less. An important moment in History for two nations – one that warrants everyone’s full attention.

  But Max soon finds herself grappling with a near-lethal game of pooh sticks, another avian incursion and two turbulent teenagers intent on piloting their own illegal jump. And that’s all before they even get near fourteenth-century Scotland.

  For this is St Mary’s and nothing is ever simple . . .

  About the Author

  Jodi Taylor is the internationally bestselling author of the Chronicles of St Mary’s series, the story of a bunch of disaster-prone individuals who investigate major historical events in contemporary time. Do NOT call it time travel!

  Born in Bristol and now living in Gloucester (facts both cities vigorously deny), she spent many years with her head somewhere else, much to the dismay of family, teachers and employers, before finally deciding to put all that daydreaming to good use and write a novel. Nearly twenty books later, she still has no idea what she wants to do when she grows up.

  By Jodi Taylor and available from Headline

  Time Police series

  Doing Time

  The Chronicles of St Mary’s series

  Just One Damned Thing After Another

  A Symphony of Echoes

  A Second Chance

  A Trail Through Time

  No Time Like the Past

  What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

  Lies, Damned Lies, and History

  And the Rest is History

  An Argumentation of Historians

  Hope for the Best

  The Long and Short of It (short-story collection)

  Long Story Short (short-story collection)

  The Chronicles of St Mary’s digital shorts

  When a Child is Born

  Roman Holiday

  Christmas Present

  Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings

  The Great St Mary’s Day Out

  My Name is Markham

  A Perfect Storm

  Christmas Past

  Battersea Barricades

  The Steam-Pump Jump

  And Now For Something Completely Different

  When Did You Last See Your Father?

  Why is Nothing Ever Simple?

  Elizabeth Cage novels

  White Silence

  Dark Light

  Frogmorton Farm series

  The Nothing Girl

  The Something Girl

  Little Donkey (digital short)

  A Bachelor Establishment

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also By

  Dramatis Thingummy

  Why is Nothing Ever Simple?

  Acknowledgements

  Dramatis Thingummy

  Dr Bairstow

  Director of St Mary’s.

  Dr Maxwell

  Head of the History Department. Parent to Matthew. In loco parentis to Adrian and Mikey and the strain is beginning to show.

  Dr Peterson

  Inching towards the possibility of c onsidering having an important conversation with Miss Lingoss but don’t hold your breath.

  Mr Markham

  What’s going on there?

  Major Guthrie

  His last jump. Surely it won’t all end in disaster? Not on his last jump.

  Chief Tech Farrell

  Appearing briefly and mainly in his role as something to do in a dark cupboard.

  Adrian and Mikey

  Missed the party. Fortunately.

  Matthew Farrell

  Manufacturing a very important Christmas gift.

  Lady Amelia Smallhope

  Second daughter of the Earl of Goodrich. Expelled from every top-class establishment that could be bribed to take her. All of whom forecast she would come to a bad end.

  Pennyroyal

  Former SAS. Crack shot. Explosives expert. Skilled thief. Butler.

  Elspeth Grey

  Got her mojo back. Yay, Elspeth!

  Robert the Bruce

  About to be King of Scotland. If he can keep his head.

  Henry de Bohun

  Sadly doesn’t get to keep his.

  The Scottish army

  The English army

  Four utter pillocks whose lives are about to go right down the pan as soon as the Time Police turn up.

  Major Guthrie was leaving us. We all knew he would, sooner or later, but the confirmation was a bit of a blow just the same. He was as recovered as he would ever be. His leg had healed well but not well enough for him to resume his duties as Head of Security. And nothing could replace his lost eye. I believe the Time Police had offered him some kind of cosmetic prosthetic which, typically, he’d declined on the grounds he wasn’t Borg, and instead adopted a black eyepatch which he thought gave him a sinister and menacing air but actually made him look like a battered hero in one of those bloodthirsty online computer games. I’d mentioned this and he’d huffed indignantly at me and ten minutes later I’d caught him checking out himself and his eyepatch in the nearest mirror. We never spoke of that moment.

  His leaving filled me with dismay. It wasn’t that Markham was doing a bad job as his replacement – he was bloody good at the job, actually – it’s just that . . . well, Ian Guthrie was Ian Guthrie and we all owed our lives to him many times over.

  When he told me that he and Elspeth Grey were taking over the pub i
n the village, the Falconburg Arms, I was pleased for him because he would be so good at running a pub – and he’d be just down the road should we ever need him. Typically, Peterson and Markham’s thoughts were far more Peterson and Markham-centric. Free drinks for life. Or so they thought.

  ‘Not a chance,’ said Ian when they broached this pleasant subject. ‘In fact, my business manager –’ he nodded at Elspeth, who looked up from her laptop and scowled at them both in a way that made it clear that, while she might have attended the brewery’s official Customer Care Course, she hadn’t actually believed a word of it in general and certainly not in connection with two customers in particular – ‘my business manager has recommended I levy a St Mary’s surcharge of at least twenty per cent.’

  ‘What?’ demanded Markham.

  ‘Why?’ demanded Peterson.

  ‘Oh, all sorts of excellent reasons. Compensation against lost revenue because no one locally wants to share a bar with you lot. A deposit against potential breakages because you know what you’re like. But mostly because we’re the landlords and what we say goes.’

  Peterson and Markham were convinced he was joking. I wasn’t so sure. And Leon was certain he wasn’t.

  Anyway, Guthrie and Elspeth had done their training – although as Peterson said, ‘Putting liquid in a glass and handing it to someone – how difficult can that be?’ – and now they were all set to go. There was the official opening night – from which St Mary’s was banned – and it all went very well, apparently, although there was some St Mary’s muttering that we weren’t good enough for Guthrie now he had a pub. Which was definitely not true, he said. We hadn’t been good enough for him before he had a pub.

  We were worrying unnecessarily. A week later, as part of our run up to Christmas, we were to have our own official St Mary’s dining-in night. The conservatory in which they served food had been reserved just for us. We responded by turning up in force because, as Markham informed him, they needed the business.

  We began with cocktails – which, yes, with hindsight, might have been a mistake. There was a tab running for everyone because none of us could be bothered with money. Indeed, as Ian had cruelly remarked, most of us couldn’t count properly anyway. Everyone was colour-coded. I overheard Peterson charging his drink to green and promptly followed suit. I had a couple of margaritas which went down very well, let me tell you, and then we wandered – or lurched – into the conservatory to eat.

  The food was gorgeous – they’d hired a new chef – and Elspeth showed she hadn’t wasted her time at St Mary’s by handing out the dessert menus first because there is nothing more heartbreaking than stuffing yourself on the first two courses and then realising you haven’t left room for your favourite pudding. In fact, after I’d given a talk about the Battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings at a local school recently, one of the teachers had asked me if I had any advice for young people and I’d said yes, always eat dessert first, which I don’t think was what she’d meant at all.

  Anyway, menus were carefully scanned and dishes carefully chosen. Everyone was in good spirits. We were all here. Even Kal, who had come down from Thirsk. I hadn’t seen her since the day she pushed me into the lake, an event she didn’t appear to remember at all, telling me I’d been pretty much out of things at the time and I must have imagined it.

  It isn’t often most of St Mary’s is present and uninjured, but at that precise moment we were. All that remained of Dottle’s treachery was just a tree stump and a stain on the memory. Peterson had the steam-pump jump under his belt and seemed happier for it. He and Lingoss sat side by side, chatting away to each other and I was pleased for them. Bashford and Sykes sat opposite each other – he with the naked and vulnerable air of a man who has, reluctantly, had to leave his chicken at home and she with the cheerful chirpiness of one whose man has been induced to leave his chicken at home. And I had Leon with me which is always my definition of a perfect evening. And yes, all right, we might have been a little bit noisy, but we had a lot to be noisy about.

  I ordered Leon a beer and then another. He commented on my generosity. I smiled benignly and signed the green chit with a flourish.

  There were some absentees. Dr Bairstow wasn’t here. He tends not to frequent this sort of event, leaving us to let our hair down without embarrassment. It’s a shame because it was a good evening and he would have enjoyed himself. It occurred to me that he must sometimes be quite lonely and then someone said he’d gone into Rushford with Mrs Partridge. Everyone said, ‘Aww, that’s nice,’ and Peterson whispered to me that he probably just wanted to be as far away as possible when the obligatory midden hit the inevitable ventilation system.

  ‘Plausibuble deniabilility,’ he said, wagging a wayward forefinger for effect.

  I ordered him another drink and winked at Lingoss whose seemingly casual attitude towards Peterson was fooling no one. Today’s hair was a festive red and green.

  Mikey and Adrian weren’t here, either. Well, they weren’t old enough to drink for a start. Old enough to have built an illegal pod and gallivanted all over the timeline with it, endangering the lives of everyone with whom they came into contact, but not old enough to consume alcohol.

  ‘As if we would ever want to,’ Mikey said in disgust. We’d left the two of them babysitting Matthew. They’d turned up at our door, staggering slightly under the weight of pizza boxes and age-inappropriate holos.

  Anyway, back to the battering the Falconburg Arms was taking. We ate well. We drank even better, but recent Atticus Wolfe events had rather taken their toll on me and I’d been under instructions from Dr Stone not to make too heavy a night of it, and anyway, neither of us wanted to leave Matthew too long with those particular babysitters, so Leon and I were among the first to leave. We – well, I – staggered into the bar where Ian was waiting for us, all ready to settle the bill.

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said, pulling out a tab as long as a toilet roll. ‘Green.’

  ‘No,’ I said, in some dismay. ‘No, no, no. Peterson’s green. Not me.’

  ‘Peterson’s blue,’ he said, consulting a multi-coloured chart of typical military complexity and thoroughness.

  ‘No, he’s not. I definitely heard him say green.’

  He grinned. ‘No, sorry, Max. Far from you charging your evening to him – he’s been charging his to you.’ He scanned down the list. ‘Wow. Someone’s had a good night.’

  ‘Do you take credit cards?’ I said gloomily.

  ‘What? From you?’

  I don’t know what was so funny about that. It seemed to me to be a perfectly reasonable request.

  I turned to Leon who had wandered off and was, for some reason, examining the sign directing people to the Ladies and being of no use whatsoever.

  Ian looked down at my giant tab again and said, slightly too casually, ‘They’re all right, aren’t they? Hunter and Markham?’

  They were both still in the dining room behind me. That wasn’t what he was asking.

  I got as far as, ‘As far as I know they’re both fine,’ and then I stopped talking and started thinking. Guthrie and Markham were close friends. He probably knew how things were going better than I did.

  ‘Actually . . .’ I said, and stopped and waited for him to leap into hasty indiscretion.

  That never works with Ian Guthrie. He just looked at me. I was going to have to say it.

  ‘Actually, he got a letter.’ I looked over my shoulder. Leon was further down the hall reading the fire evacuation instructions. A bit of a busman’s holiday for him.

  Guthrie cast him a glance and then said, ‘Is this the one he had back in the summer? After the steam-pump affair?’

  I nodded.

  He said quietly, ‘You doing anything tomorrow, Max?’

  ‘Well, yes, obviously. I’m massively busy. Always am.’

  ‘So no, then.’

  ‘Not
really, no.’

  ‘Can you get away sometime?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Come and see me. I’d like a quick word.’ He raised his voice. ‘Now, about this credit card of yours . . .’

  I tugged out my wallet, pulled out my credit card, polished it hopefully on my sleeve – as if that would help – and handed it over.

  It went through. Both Ian and I were utterly and equally gobsmacked and I whirled Leon out of the door before everyone could discover there had been a horrible mistake somewhere along the line.

  We wandered happily up the road back towards St Mary’s. Christmas was only a week or so away but the night was quite mild. I didn’t even need my gloves.

  I admired the pretty golden Van Gogh nimbus around each of the street lights – although that might have been my eyesight rather than actual atmospheric conditions. Or even that last margarita. We held hands – and not just because I might have been a fraction unsteady on my feet. We walked slowly, enjoying a few rare moments on our own, stopping at the little stone bridge over the stream to look at the black water flowing underneath.

  I remembered this stream from six hundred years ago when it had been wider and shallower and there was no bridge at all. You got across by hopping from one wide, flat stone to another. Mostly but not always successfully in my case. And there had been bundles of willow twigs standing in the water to keep them supple enough to weave, and up there had been the mill with whatshisname the miller – Robert Stukely – who would rob you blind as soon as look at you, and over there had been the big tithe barns where the harvests were stored. And over there had been Pikey Peter’s mother’s house . . .

  I was wandering happily through the past when Leon, who can be quite frivolous for a techie, suggested pooh sticks. The bridge was well lit at both ends – thank you, Parish Council – and Leon had his torch anyway. We could easily see well enough to break off a few twigs from nearby bushes. I accepted his challenge and away we went.