Time Rocks

  *

  The police asked lots of questions. They said another officer would watch our house for a few days. I didn’t tell them about the same van running me off the road. My mother would have kittens if she heard about that. Otherwise the procedure was pretty straightforward. By that I mean that thankfully, Special Branch was not involved this time. After about an hour and some more tea we were free to leave. As we left I asked them about Jack’s case and whether they had heard from Sir Mackenzie Carmichael. They returned blank looks. One offered to check the calls’ log. She came back a few moments later with nothing to report.

  I rang Chloe as soon as I got home. I had loads to tell her, and I wanted her to help me put my blog together. There was no answer again. I was really worried now. This wasn’t right. And what about that damn dog?

  I told my dad. He offered to get the car out and run me round there straight away. It only takes five minutes by car, but I can cycle it almost as quickly, even with my dodgy leg. Anyway I needed to get away and think. I can’t do that with my dad sneaking into my room every five minutes to ask the questions he daren’t ask when my mum is in earshot. She’s such a worrier.

  I pedalled off into a warm evening. My leg hurt, but not too badly. The image of that van reversing, bouncing over the professor as he lay there struggling to get up, kept floating before my eyes. Why had he been killed? Were the killers trying to shut him up? A cruel irony considering that was exactly what he had wanted to do anyway?

  The sun was sinking towards the trees. Ecstatic swallows were buzzing the sunbeams. I thought of the professor’s wife, Mona I think he called her. They would have been coming up to retirement soon I guessed. Who would tell her? Would it be some policeman in Bristol? Would they get a friend to be with her? Why did he have to die?

  Chloe’s house was locked and in darkness. I couldn’t hear any television or radio playing. I went round the back to look through the kitchen window for the poor dog. I found police tape stuck over the back door where a new padlock and bar had been fitted. The crazy woman from next door was running from her house as I returned to the front. Gods! The nosey old wotsit must live her life with one eye permanently glued to her front window.

  ‘They’re not in,’ she said huffily, evidently spoiling for a fight. ‘They’ve been gone since last week. I had to ring the RSPCA because of the little dog. The police came. There was no water for it. They had to break in. It was just abandoned in the kitchen. Some people should never be allowed dogs. The poor little thing. It could have died.’

  So many thoughts were crashing through my mind that I was staring at her unable to speak. I just got on my bike and pedalled away in a daze. Something bad had happened to Chloe. I just knew it. It must be something bad, or why would her mother and father be missing too? Where were they? They would never have left their dog like that. They loved it, and they were caring, responsible people.

  At home I rang the police. The officer told me they were doing a trace on the family, and explained they would first ask all known family members and friends and then start physically searching if that failed. They asked me a few questions about Chloe, her normal haunts, habits and her friends’ names. I had been worried and frustrated when I called them, but now I was angry too. It was partly because they didn’t know anything useful, but mainly because when I’d first asked about Jack the whole conversation had been quite different. They hadn’t mentioned anything about contacting family and friends, and I was reminded yet again that Jack’s disappearance had been completely blanked out.

  I was furious. It made me feel even more isolated, especially with the professor gone. I know I’m surrounded by a loving family and have lots of friends, but the professor and I had shared a secret nobody else knew. It had linked us in a strangely comforting way. That was why, out of all the people he knew, he’d chosen to come to me. I was the only one he felt he could talk to about it. Now I was alone. I couldn’t tell my mum, she’d flip. My dad would storm around ringing politicians, and police and people, but it wouldn’t get us far, and frankly I didn’t want all that sort of fuss. Chloe was missing, and I daren’t tell anybody else, except perhaps my granddad. Even my parents took their troubles to him. He was calm and logical, and somehow always knew what to do.

  I lay in bed in the dark staring at the ceiling. Thoughts barged around in my brain not making much sense. One thing was clear though, time travel was a reality, and knowing it had cost the professor his life. Now that I knew too, I could be next. Someone was ruthlessly protecting their secret. They had killed the professor. Was I supposed to have been killed too? Perhaps the explosion was intended for both of us, as well as being a DNA clean up blast for the van. Whoever planted it must have seen me with the professor in the café. Surely I must now be at the top of their hit list. How long before they tried again? Maybe they were already setting something up. What would it be; another bomb, a car accident, or a nice clean bullet?

  The explosion had been such a carefully planned and sophisticated attack. The police had hinted at a radio controlled device. If it was MCF, they had explosives and plenty of expertise. The sickening realisation that they might try to blow up my house and my family washed over me like an icy wave. I had to get out, and hide, but I would need to make sure they saw me leave the house so they would not bother to attack my home and family. But where would I go? I have no money for hotels and food. I couldn’t drive our camper van, and even if I could they would easily follow me.

  I thought of my grandfather again. He lived in Bradford on Avon, a small medieval town about twelve miles away. It was quiet and picturesque, with narrow alleys and cute passages winding up steep hillsides. There were plenty of narrow escape routes to scamper down between its old houses, if I had to make a quick getaway. It’s also on a main rail line and the canal, so my options for getting in and out secretly were good. Another big advantage was, it was the only place I could go without my family asking lots of questions.

  I rang granddad on the house line, not my mobile, which was almost certainly bugged.

  ‘Tori, Is that you? Where’re you to then, girl?’ he chirruped, his voice warmed by his Wiltshire accent.

  ‘I’m at home,’ I whispered. ‘Granddad, I need a big favour.’

  ‘You’m got it, girl. What is it?’

  ‘I want you to ring my mum and complain that you never see me. I need to come and stay with you for a few days.’

  ‘Oh lovely!’ he cried. ‘I’d like that - and bring your pooter with ee. I want to look up sommat they calls yootoob on the worldwide-inter–webnet-thingy. I heard ‘em going on ‘bout it in the library.’

  The following morning I left my house making as much noise as I could. By the time I’d done yelling back to my mother in the house, anybody spying on us would be left in no doubt that I was going away for several days. I had shouted goodbye a dozen times, and promised to be back home in about a week. If that didn’t convince them that blowing up our house would be a waste of time, nothing would. The next tricky bit would be how to get to granddad’s without being followed. I had told my parents that I was getting a lift from a friend, and that I only needed to cycle as far as my friend’s house. In truth, I hadn’t a clue how I was going to get there. I needed to make myself invisible. Somehow, I had to lose whoever was following me.

  I pedalled into town racking my brains for an idea, but none came. The traffic slowed and stopped as we neared the old brewery on the edge of the town centre. Being on my bike, I could easily squeeze past the crawling cars and trucks. I turned left through stationary traffic at a mini island and steered up onto the pavement to get past a set of road mender's traffic lights that were causing the congestion. A brewery truck, as big as a furniture van, was making ready to leave the brewery yard. The driver was checking his manifest. The roller shutter door at the back of the vehicle was wide open. I stopped the bike and leaned it against the brewery yard wall. A crocodile of tourists was passing by. They all jabbered excitedly on their way to
see the famous brewery shire horses and stables. The van driver broke off his paper work to flirt with a pretty young tour guide. Nobody was watching the van.

  I wheeled my bike calmly into the yard and parked it in a cycle stand. Still nobody paid me any attention. The yard was full of noise and chatter. The driver had lowered the truck’s hydraulic tailgate to half height to give him a convenient step up for checking his manifest. I climbed up on to it and slipped into the van, and hid behind boxes and trays of bottles. Apart from a little Japanese girl holding her mom's hand in the tourist crocodile, nobody had seen me. From my hiding place I gave her a wave, making her giggle shyly and chew her fingers.

  With my heart in my mouth, I waited for someone to expose me and order me out of the truck. Nobody did. A couple of minutes later the roller shutter door came down and I heard it being padlocked. The truck pulled away slowly, nosing into the crawling traffic. I was its passenger. If anyone had been following me in one of the many cars crawling through that busy junction they would not have been able to see me. Even if they had leapt out of their car and run around the corner to follow me, there was a good chance they would have lost me when I ducked into the brewery yard. Also, they would be looking for me on my bike, not hanging about in a crowd of tourists.

  Of course, I had no idea where we were going, but I didn’t care. I was elated. I was sure I had managed to draw my watchers away from my house, and lose them in the traffic. I had led them into town and vanished. If they are really smart they might find my bike and put two and two together, but not for some time. By then I should be safely hidden with my grandfather. The only thing that remained to be done to complete my deception was to hide my mobile phone in the van. If they were using it to track me I could send them on a pub crawl every day until they found it in the truck.

  I had become invisible.

  ………