Authors: Alex Marks
CHAPTER NINE
Tuesday, 2 April 2015. 09.26
I blinked the flash out of my eyes, and then slowly turned on the spot. I was still standing in the workshop, but the light coming through the smeary old window was undeniably different. I felt my heart pounding in my chest and I had to concentrate on taking a series of deep breaths. If my maths was correct, I had found the best possible hiding place from Richard Holland: a week in the past.
At that thought I dived into the bum bag and ripped the battery out of its casing before the failing charge could take me straight back to where I'd come from. I was here and I was staying. The thought jolted through me somehow like an adrenalin kick. My heart beat loudly in my chest, my limbs felt heavy and strong, and for the first time in weeks I felt in control. I liked it, I'd missed this feeling, although it seemed a stronger flavour of confidence than I was used to.
Shaking my head at these useless thoughts, I stepped quietly to the doors and applied my eye to one of the gaps in the planking. Outside, sheets of rain blew down sideways from a grey sky, the trees and bushes of the garden dripping heavily. That's right, I'd taken the car into the lab today and – I squinted with the effort, my memory strangely thick and resistant – I wouldn't be back until about 5ish. I remembered my frustration at 122's seemingly inexplicable results and snorted at my earlier stupidity. Anyway, this gave me plenty of time to do what I needed to do.
Nobody was out in the rain, peering through my unkempt hedge onto the drive, but I still found myself limping quickly across the gravel and round to the back door. I blinked at the pristine kitchen: no smashed crockery, no up-turned table, Richard Holland's spiteful destruction still a week away. Shaking my head, I made my way down the hallway and up the stairs. Fergus, arrested as he'd been strolling across the landing, looked at me in surprise. Hadn't I just gone out? He trotted amiably over to my outstretched hand and head-bumped my fingers. Good, I was glad he wasn't going to be a complication. I gave him one last scratch behind the ears and made my way into the box room.
Everything was as I remembered it. It was a strange feeling, almost unreal, like those dream memories where you visit some long-lost place and can recall every book, every ornament, every picture. I didn't know whether it was the exhaustion, the pain-killers, or my stepping back a week, but my hands seemed a long way away when I looked at them, sensations taking an infinity to travel along my nerves and reach my brain. I slumped down onto the unmade box room bed and then blacked out.
When I woke up I was collapsed, half-sitting, against the wall. Fergus was curled up beside me, and he blinked his amber eyes companionably when he saw I'd come round. I started, and shot a look to the window, but the light told me that hardly any time had passed, fortunately. I didn't want to be discovered by myself – but then, I hadn't done that so presumably it wasn't now going to happen. Fuck me, I ran my hand over my battered face, this time travel business was bloody confusing.
My head felt a bit straighter for my rest, but my ribs were killing me after hours in a half-slump and my fingers were burning. I hobbled stiffly down to the bathroom, had a long piss, and then re-set my watch by the kitchen clock and started to gather together what I was going to need.
It took several slow trips, punctuated by taking more pain-killers and eating a sandwich, but I had soon decked out the little eaves room above the workshop with a camp bed, sleeping bag and an electric heater. An old kettle fished out of the shed and a collection of just-add-hot-water foodstuffs would see me through the night, and I'd already filled up the water carrier from our camping stuff. I'd taken the desk lamp from the work bench, and strung an old blanket across the window to hide the light, although the room faced the bathroom side of the house and so wouldn't be especially visible anyway. Still, no point in taking chances.
I carefully brought down my old motorcycle leathers and helmet and rummaged the Yamaha's key from the drawer in the kitchen. I walked into the living room and pulled my old laptop out of a box, then took a look around to make sure nothing was visibly out of place before lugging my final trophies over to the workshop.
Tuesday, 2 April 2015. 12.41
Now I had my shit together, it seemed obvious that the first thing I should do was to pay my father-in-law a visit, with extreme prejudice. It felt strange, but everything else faded away in the face of this compulsion to do some serious damage, to pay back my beating and humiliation, to stop being the loser who'd been on the receiving end of his boot. I boiled the kettle, then sat on the floor and ate a pot noodle, plans running through my head at top speed. Today would be a good day to do it, as I would have an excellent alibi – if I remembered correctly – I was in the lab all day. On the other hand, I also wanted to visit the house in Headington again and see what I could find out. I finished the noodle and considered.
It was strangely liberating to know that, whatever I did, it couldn't touch me. I found myself smiling broadly at that, and then limped down the stairs to choose a nice, big, heavy spanner. It thudded into my palm very satisfactorily. I pulled the tarp off my old black Yamaha R1 and wheeled it onto the drive. Luckily, I'd filled it up just before going off to the conference back in February, and hadn't ridden it since, so it was good to go. I'd already – painfully – wriggled into the leathers, so now I just plugged my earbuds in, jammed my aching head into the helmet and took off.
Zipping down the road to Oxford a bit faster than I would normally I revelled in this new feeling of confidence and power. The Rolling Stone's
Jumping Jack Flash
pounded in my ears.
'I was born in a cross-fire hurricane!' I sang along, although if anyone was getting a spike right through the head today it definitely wouldn't be me. A little voice in the back of my mind wondered why I would be feeling so pepped up, but it was easy to ignore. I was on my way to mete out some long-overdue justice to a complete bastard, why wouldn't I feel revved?
I made it up to North Oxford in-between the population migrations of lunchtime and the end-of-day school run, and pulled the bike into the side road that led to my parents-in-law's £900,000 1930s detached home. As I killed the engine, the expensive quiet of Summertown seeped in through my visor: the nannies were out with their charges, the yummy mummies were coming back from lunching, and their banker husbands were still at the office. Sexist, I know, but tell me I'm wrong? Fortunately for me, Richard Holland worked from home.
I had stowed the wrench inside my leathers, where it had been pressing against my cracked ribs for the entire journey, each jolt a nice little reminder of why I was here. I reached in for it now, and pushed it inside my right sleeve, its heavy metal head clasped and hidden in my hand. I swung my leg over the bike and began to walk across the street.
As I passed a large, expensive car parked at the curb I caught sight of myself in the window: an dark figure in motorcycle leathers, visor down, anonymous, sinister. I didn't look like me, and with a jolt I came to a stop. The wrench suddenly seemed as heavy as lead in my hand, and ice cold, and I had a clear vision of what it would look like,
what it would sound like
, if I brought it smashing down onto Richard's skull. My head went light like a balloon and the road bucked as if it was trying to throw me off, and suddenly the spanner was clanging away onto the tarmac and I was kneeling in the gutter trying not to pass out.
What the fuck had I been thinking? I didn't go round to people's houses and attack them. I took in a deep breath, and another, and squeezed my eyes shut to try and arrest the images of pain and violence that were flashing through my mind like a horror film running out of control. I don't know how long I knelt there, but eventually the bass drum in my chest slowed and the metallic taste of adrenalin on my tongue started to fade. I staggered back to the bike and rode away.
I made it down the Banbury Road to St Giles before my shaking made it too dangerous to go any further, so I pulled into the car park outside the Oxfam bookshop and staggered into the St Giles café. Too posh to be a real greasy spoon, it nevertheless served a decent all-day breakfast and I devoured one like a starving man. It was only when I was sitting back in my chair, stuffed to the gunwales, sipping my second cup of tea that I felt vaguely like myself.
I shuddered at the thought of what I had so nearly done. Looking back, the dangerous self-confidence that had been affecting me since this morning I could only assume was some weird side-effect of the time travel, and I resolved to watch for it in case it crept back into my mind. I was still me, I was still trying to get through this nightmare and get proper justice for Sarah and Helen, wasn't I? Against the far wall a long mirror reflected the entire café, identical and different enough in reverse to set my teeth on edge and my mind jangling. I stole a glance at the other customers: they seemed distant from me somehow, as if they were real and I was merely a reflection, not properly solid anymore. I pinched the bridge of my nose – I felt my sanity like a separate thing, a heavy possession that I could, theoretically, put down. The thought slipped down my back like a cold snake, curling in my stomach and making it ache with anxiety. I wished Sarah was here, to take my hand and make everything alright again.
I couldn't afford to give in to this. I needed a real plan, and I needed one fast. I'd got an extra week, a precious week where I was free to do what I liked, go anywhere, be anyone. Maybe I wasn't real anymore, maybe I was just a ghost, but I could at least choose to be a useful one. The police weren't investigating Sarah's death or her allegations against her father, so I would. I had a perfect alibi, and at this point in the events of the last few weeks Richard Holland had no idea that I suspected him. I would haunt his steps, follow him, see who he met with and where he went, and at the end of it all I might give the evidence to the police or just cut out the middle man and release it to the press. Even better, I thought, glancing out of the window at my bike, I had the perfect cover for riding around Oxford and following my father-in-law as he went about his shady business. After all, nobody pays any attention to a motorcycle courier.
An hour and a trip down the Cowley Road later, I was the proud owner of a large yellow bag with 'Nemesis Couriers' printed onto it (just my little joke). It had a bogus phone number and web address printed under the logo, and I'd dragged the bag up and down the pavement a few times to give it a well-worn scruffiness. The rest of me looked so anonymous in my leathers that if anyone did notice me then the day-glo bag and its red winged logo would be the only thing to stick in their minds.
I bought a cheap fluorescent waistcoat to complete my disguise, and a handful of padded envelopes to pack out the courier bag. My mobile was unusable - the operating system had announced a 'permanent fatal error' when I'd tried to turn it on - so I also headed into a Polski Slep to buy a disposable phone on a network that I hadn't even heard of before. The heavy-set man behind the counter looked curiously at my pair of black eyes, but said nothing. The mobile was cheap and tiny, but it worked, and I stowed it inside my leathers before getting back on the bike and heading home.
I was absolutely exhausted, and I was starting to panic that I would arrive at the same moment as my earlier self, so I pushed hard and slammed down the sweeping turns of the road as fast as I dared. My eyes stung with tiredness, my ribs ached, and it took all my remaining energy to ride in a straight line. I'd almost got home when I must have zoned out for a split second, over steering towards a corner. I pulled up, heart pounding, and decided to push the bike the last hundred yards into the drive. Max, out watering his spring bulbs in the last of the daylight, raised a hand in greeting and I gave him what I hoped passed for a friendly nod, glad my visor was down and he couldn't see my purpling black eyes.
I dragged the bike back into the workshop, and then I waited, I just couldn't help myself, I had to wait to see my earlier me arrive. That strange hot confidence was seeping through my veins again, and I forgot about my aching bones and my splitting head as I stood and waited. Oddly, I found myself feeling almost smug, as if I was lying in wait for my earlier, more innocent self.
There I was. The car pulled onto the drive and the headlights, switched on against the early Spring gloom, went dark. I leaned closer to the door, which creaked very slightly against my weight, and watched as a figure pulled itself wearily out of the drivers' door and slammed it shut. I held my breath.
I watched myself stand for a second, looking at the house with remembered unease, and then trudge resignedly inside, shoulders slumped and defeated. A night of tidying and whisky awaited, I remembered, and again there was that rush of hot disdain. This was the guy who got himself pushed around - by Bill Gilbert, the police, and fucking Richard Holland, not me. It was going to be different this time round; I was going to be different.
I stepped away from the door, and all the exhaustion came crashing back, staggering me. I just managed to get up the stairs to my temporary home, but now time had gone jerky, and I was suddenly lying down on my camp bed, and then there was blackness.