TIME QUAKE (21 page)

‘Peter!’ she cried. ‘Where are you?’

Her hands found Hannah.

‘Calm yourself, Mistress Kate. He’ll be back soon, no doubt. You’ve been asleep and Lord knows you need the rest . . .’

‘What’s happened? Where are we?’

‘We are close to the Tar Man’s house. If you look through the window, you can see the Thames.’

Kate pushed her head through the window into the moonlight. The air was cool and she could smell the river. She could hear it, too, flowing fast towards London Bridge. She stood up to get a better view. There was the Thames, its surface scoured by the wind into glittering ripples. Watermen mooring their wherries downstream called goodnight to each other under a star-studded sky. Towards the south a menacing flash of green lightning
flickered on the horizon and a thunderclap rolled slowly towards them.

‘Where are the others, Hannah?’

Hannah hesitated. ‘Sir Richard told me to wait with you. They found the Tar Man’s house . . . Peter is with Gideon – and Sir Richard and the Parson, of course.’

‘Peter went without me!’

‘You were so sound asleep, Mistress Kate, and with you being so poorly! And then we saw the state of your feet – I’ve never seen the like! When we return to Lincoln’s Inn Fields I shall prepare a paste of comfrey and camomile which is most soothing—’

‘I’m fine, Hannah!’ interrupted Kate. ‘And I’m not poorly. Being tired isn’t the same thing as being poorly.’ She hoisted up one foot onto the opposite knee and examined her injured sole as well as she could by the light of the moon. ‘My feet aren’t
so
bad. They don’t hurt. I could still walk on them.’

‘But, Mistress Kate, they are swollen and bleeding!’

But Kate scarcely heard Hannah’s reply. All at once the image of Peter’s face had filled her mind. He was thrashing about in the water, coming up for air and crying out for help until he started to go under again and his mouth was filled with river water once more. Peter was drowning, she was sure of it, and her own lungs burned as she sensed Peter struggle to breathe. Moonlight shone on dark water as Peter’s head slowly sank under the surface, his hair streaming behind him like weed in the strong current.

Kate did not for an instant doubt the truth of her vision. In the perpetually flowing stream of time, looking forwards had felt no stranger than looking backwards. Glimpses into the future were, like memories, vivid and fleeting – and unpredictable. The fortune-teller’s words rang in her ears: ‘The Oracle has always been in my dreams . . .’

‘Are you not feeling well, Mistress Kate?’

‘No – I’m fine . . . Really. Was that a shot I just heard? Or was it thunder?’

‘I was asking myself the same question. I
hope
it was Master Blueskin getting a taste of his own medicine.’

All at once the carriage was filled with the sound of tearing material.

‘What are you doing?’ exclaimed Hannah. ‘Tell me that is not your dress!’

‘My petticoat. Don’t worry, I’ll still be decent. Will you help me bind my feet? You don’t have to come with me, but I
am
going after them.’

Peter and the old gentleman stretched the cord taut across the second step from the bottom. Toby looked on from the doorstep, as silent as his owner had promised. Even by moonlight, the black patch over the dog’s eye gave him a cheerful air. The animal yawned, and scratched behind his ear with his back leg and settled down to wait. But a second later, when Peter had barely finished tying the cord to the wooden banister, the piercing crack of a pistol shot catapulted the little dog into the air. It scampered to its master and hurled itself into his arms.

After an exchange of alarmed glances Peter and the old gentleman both retreated into the shadows to wait, Peter passing the heavy cobblestone nervously from one hand to the other whilst his companion grasped his knife at shoulder height, ready to strike. Twice Peter heard a terrible cry, uttered, he thought, by Sir Richard but he could not be sure. The hairs bristled at the back of his neck and a cold sweat pricked at him. Peter was in an agony of indecision. Should they burst in? Or was it better to keep the advantage of surprise and stay put? He strained to make out what
the voices that carried from upstairs were saying but all he distinguished was an anguished ‘No!’ When the second shot sounded the tension was almost too much to bear – Peter let out a strangulated cry, as did Toby, though his master quickly clamped the dog’s jaws together in his hand. Peter’s breathing was so rapid and shallow he was starting to feel dizzy. Then an anonymous cry reached them that was so appalling it turned Peter’s blood to ice. He did not even dare imagine what terrible thing had just happened. He stared, unblinking, at the strip of flickering light that escaped from the upstairs room. Seconds later the Tar Man burst through the door and slammed it behind him so violently it sounded like another pistol shot.

Peter jumped in shock. Now that the moment had come to act, he could not. He felt stunned, disorientated. What was he supposed to do? He stood with his mouth open, gawping at the athletic figure who hurtled down the stairs two steps at a time. The stone! Peter hurled the cobblestone at his moving target before it was too late. It grazed the Tar Man’s shoulder, smashed into the opposite wall with an explosion of plaster and ricocheted back at Peter who had to dive to one side to avoid being hit. A speck of plaster lodged behind Peter’s eyelid so that it was through a veil of tears that he saw the Tar Man trip over the cord. He landed on his knees, one elbow buckling under his weight as he stretched out his hands to stop his face smashing into the stone floor. The Tar Man cursed roundly. As he pushed himself up he saw a glinting dagger come at him. He swiped at it with his fist and sent it spinning across the floor until it hit the far wall with a bright, metallic clang. Surprised to note the age of his assailant, the Tar Man still grabbed hold of the old gentleman’s wrist in one hand and his opposite shoulder in the other, using him as a lever to hoist himself up. Without pausing for breath, he proceeded to lift the old gentleman
into the air. He did this with such ease he could have been picking up a child. The expression on his victim’s creased face was closer to surprise than terror, and Peter noticed in that instant how painfully thin the old man’s legs were as they kicked in mid-air, encased in their wrinkly white stockings and worn, buckled shoes. The Tar Man flung him across the hall. The old gentleman’s frail body smashed against a wooden door that led to an inner room. The door opened under the impact, breaking the old gentleman’s fall before he slid to the ground. Peter half expected him to crack into a thousand fragments like a china vase and disintegrate piece by piece in front of him. As it was he collapsed in a heap and came to rest on the cold flagstones. The attack elicited an eruption of distressed barking from Toby who now leaped fearlessly at his master’s aggressor, his blackcurrant eyes flashing in fury. He growled and bared his teeth.

‘Pshaw! Have half the waifs and strays of London found their way to my door? Am I to be licked to within an inch of my life by confounded lapdogs?’

Toby closed his jaws on the Tar Man’s ankle.

‘Aargh!’

A second later Peter saw the little white dog fly through the air and land with a thud in the corner of the hall where it lay as still as the grave. It was then Peter’s turn to become the object of the Tar Man’s attention. He sprang towards him. Through streaming eyes Peter knelt down and fumbled for the cobblestone. He was shaking with fear. A creature caught in the hypnotic gaze of a striking snake. No sooner had Peter’s fingertips closed, too late, around the cobblestone than the Tar Man was upon him. Peter felt himself swung, in his turn, across the hall. He flew through the air. His head hit the wall and for a moment all he could see was a shower of stars. He wondered if he might be unconscious or in the middle
of a dream and lay quietly, calm and detached from everything. Presently, however, he became aware of footsteps. He opened his stinging eyelids and squinted into the darkness. Wiping the tears away with the back of his hand, he tried to focus on a dark shape that crossed his angle of vision. The Tar Man was re-entering the hall from one of the rooms that led off it, stepping over the old gentleman who still lay groaning on the threshold. He was carrying something in both hands and now stood, head bowed in concentration as if he were praying. After a minute or so, the Tar Man seemed to grow exasperated and he flung the two objects he was holding into the far corner of the hall, walked a few paces, bent over, pulled something up and proceeded to disappear into the floor! Peter struggled to understand what he was seeing. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. A trapdoor! There must be a cellar, or even a secret passageway, beneath the house! A stink of mould and stagnant water wafted towards him in waves. The contour of the Tar Man’s head was now all that Peter could make out as he pulled the trapdoor down after him. It closed with a clang that echoed within the unseen space into which the Tar Man had vanished.

Peter looked up at the door at the top of the stairs. His heart began to race. What terrible sight awaited him up there? Peter tried to heave himself up but found he was too shocked and winded to move, so he lay still, helpless as a baby. His ribs hurt and his mouth was so dry his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He felt a terrible longing for an ice-cold glass of Coca-Cola. He licked his lips; he could almost taste it. Fat chance of him getting his wish, he thought. Perhaps he’d never taste his favourite drink ever again . . . Or perhaps somewhere, in one of those parallel worlds Kate’s dad had told them about, there was a house on Richmond Green, with a mum and a dad and a boy called Peter, who would come home from school and raid the giant fridge for salami and Coca-Cola.
Suddenly the existence of such a world seemed highly improbable. Home. He hadn’t thought about home for so long. He rubbed at his watering eyes, trying to get rid of the speck of plaster.

Like a ceasefire, all was eerily silent in the Tar Man’s house while the trail of victims left in his wake tried to recover from their encounter with Lord Luxon’s henchman. The calm was of short duration. The door burst open again and this time Peter saw Gideon hurry down the staircase.

‘Gideon!’ cried Peter in delight. ‘You’re alive!’ And then: ‘Stop! Cord! Bottom of stairs!’

The golden candlelight that now poured down from the Tar Man’s sitting room illuminated the cord that was stretched taut across the stairwell. In the nick of time Gideon spotted it and leaped high into the air, landing heavily on the stone flags next to Peter.

Gideon looked about him. He saw the old gentleman hauling himself slowly up by the door handle; he saw the little white dog lying still and silent at the far end of the hall and he saw Peter, slumped up against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him like a drunk recovering in a gutter.

‘We were trying to stop the Tar Man . . .’ said Peter.

‘I do not need to ask how you fared . . .’

‘There’s a trapdoor,’ said Peter quickly, rolling on to his side but failing to push himself up from the floor. ‘Over there – he opened it and disappeared down the hole.’

‘Then there’s no time to lose. Come, Peter, if you are not too badly hurt, I need you to fetch Hannah.’

Gideon offered Peter his hand and, with some grunting on both their parts on account of their respective injuries, he heaved him to his feet.

‘Sir Richard needs a doctor,’ panted Gideon. ‘As does the Parson.’

‘I’ll have no doctor prodding at me! I’ve lost enough blood. A glass or two of port is all I need to steady my nerves.’

It was Parson Ledbury who spoke, his bulky form swaying to and fro, black against the flickering light. He clung unsteadily to the door handle.

‘May I suggest, Parson, that you take the precaution of sitting down before you break your neck.’

The Parson slithered obediently down the door frame, and sat with a loud thump on the top step. He rested his elbows on his knees and held his bloodied face in his hands. ‘I fear for my cousin, Gideon. Can such an injury be mended? It is his right arm. Please God, Richard will not lose the use of it.’

Meanwhile the old gentleman had started to crawl towards Toby.

‘I’ll get him for you,’ said Peter hurriedly. His head was spinning as he walked down the hallway and he had to steady himself by leaning against the wall. He looked down at the motionless dog and picked it up as you would a baby and cradled it in his arms so that its short legs stuck up in the air. Its dense, bristly fur felt coarse against Peter’s fingers and its head drooped backwards, its jaws slightly apart, revealing black and pink gums.

The old gentleman had stopped crawling but remained on all fours, his eyes fixed on his canine friend. ‘Tell me the truth, young sir, have I room for hope? Is he warm or cold?’

‘He is warm, sir,’ said Peter.

The old gentleman let his forehead sink to the floor and his back heaved.

Gideon knelt down next to the old gentleman and put his hand on his back.

‘May I help you to your feet, sir?’ he asked.

The old gentleman shook his head and remained in this semi-recumbent pose.

Gideon stood up, full of rage. ‘The devil take Blueskin! Is his sole purpose on this earth to dispense an unending stream of misery and fear? Peter, run and get Hannah. I have to bring the Tar Man back to mend Sir Richard’s arm.’

‘What?!’ exclaimed Peter.

‘There is no time to explain,’ said Gideon, pulling up the trapdoor. ‘Sir Richard will be in an agony of pain when he begins to stir. He will need a nurse.’