Gideon the Cutpurse

  ‘America? Nonsense! No, I cannot believe it!’ exclaimed the Parson, becoming very red in the face. ‘More powerful than England?!!!’

  ‘Much.’

  ‘More powerful than France?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Much more.’

  ‘Ah, well. That is some small comfort … Upon my word … America! … I should not dare tell anyone, in any case, for fear of being lynched.’

  ‘And America builds a spaceship that carries men to the moon.’

  ‘Now I know I am but dreaming,’ said the Parson.

  ‘And in the future,’ interjected Gideon, ‘they do not condemn the weak and the poor to a life of misery or a life of crime. They don’t hang men for stealing food to prevent their children from starving …’

  ‘Look!’ cried Sir Richard suddenly. ‘Mistress Kate!’

  Like a photograph forming in developing fluid, Kate started to materialise. It was mesmerising and rather beautiful. Peter alone sensed an infinitesimally small jolt as her form fixed itself in 1763 once more.

  ‘Peter!’ she immediately exclaimed, beaming with happiness. ‘They know about us blurring! Our parents must know that we’re not dead! They won’t have given up.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘In our time this is an office. There’s a photocopier in the corner and there was a girl reading a newspaper and having a crafty cigarette and blowing the smoke through the window. Anyway, she didn’t notice me at first and I just stood there looking at her. Something made her look up and she noticed me. She was so shocked she forgot to breathe out the smoke and she started to choke. She was coughing and the tears were running down her face but she managed to refold her newspaper back to the front page and she tapped it with her finger and held it up for me to see. ‘Is this you?’ she spluttered. When I looked I saw that there was a picture of us in Covent Garden – someone had caught us on film blurring. The headline said “Going, going, gone!”’

  ‘Wow!’ said Peter. ‘That’s fantastic! What did you say to her?’

  ‘I only just managed to say anything, it was really hurting by that time – but I managed to say ‘I’m in 1763’ and give her the thumbs-up sign. The last thing I saw was her picking up the telephone.’

  ‘I do not pretend to grasp the half of what you say, Mistress Kate, but are we to understand that your parents know that you are lost in a different century?’ asked Sir Richard.

  ‘Well, they will now!’ replied Kate triumphantly.

  ‘And so will they be able to travel here to get you? Do they have a machine like the one you seek?’

  Peter looked at Kate but he already knew how she was going to react. He watched as her face crumpled and she sat down heavily in the chair and the tears started to roll down her cheeks. For someone who is so clever and brave, he thought, Kate can be seriously embarrassing.

  ‘I don’t think that there is another machine,’ said Peter, as Kate was incapable of replying. ‘It was part of a scientific experiment. It was an accident that brought us here and I don’t see how they could come and get us.’

  Gideon stood up and walked over to Kate where he knelt next to her and put his hand on hers.

  ‘Do not let despair darken your heart, Mistress Kate,’ he said. ‘There is always hope and you are not alone. You shall have the anti-gravity machine, I swear it. And sooner than you think.’

  ‘How so, Gideon?’ asked Sir Richard.

  ‘I visited Lord Luxon this very morning.’

  ‘You did what?’ exclaimed Peter. ‘But he kidnapped you only yesterday!’

  ‘I am certain it was the Tar Man’s doing … It is not in Lord Luxon’s nature to order such a thing.’

  ‘I bet he didn’t offer to give it back, though!’

  ‘I truly believe he would have returned the machine – even though it is a treasure which Blueskin craves – had I not angered him by begging him not to employ Joshua, my half-brother.’

  ‘Joshua is apprenticed to Mr Hogarth in Covent Garden, is he not?’ asked Sir Richard. ‘He is a fine engraver, I hear.’

  ‘Mr Hogarth is old and in ill health. Lord Luxon offered to employ Joshua and in so doing hoped to persuade me back into his household.’

  ‘My dear Gideon,’ said Sir Richard. ‘You should have mentioned Joshua’s difficulty to me before. I should be happy to help him find a position.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir Richard! Thank you!’

  ‘So how can we get the anti-gravity machine back, then?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Lord Luxon said … that as the Tar Man and I both desire it, we must ride for it.’

  ‘What the devil does he mean by that?’ asked the Parson.

  ‘The machine is hidden in the family crypt at Tempest House in Surrey. Blueskin and I are to ride from Lord Luxon’s London residence in St James to Tempest House. The first of us to reach the crypt wins the prize.’

  ‘Ride against the Tar Man!’ declared the Parson. ‘You must not agree to his terms! Against such an adversary you would risk more than the loss of the machine, of that I have no doubt.’

  ‘No, Gideon,’ said Sir Richard. ‘You would do better to denounce Lord Luxon. I know that he wields great influence and he may think that his position in society is impregnable but – if you could conquer your tender scruples – your testimony against him would bring him down.’

  ‘I owe Lord Luxon my life. I have sworn an oath. You know that I shall not betray him.’

  Sir Richard sighed and shook his head. ‘Your sense of honour does you justice, Gideon, but I consider that you are wrong in this. However, you know my views on the matter and I shall not lecture you any further. So, you appear to have only one choice, Gideon. You must ride.’

  ‘I am prepared to do so.’

  ‘When is the race to take place?’

  ‘Dawn tomorrow.’

  ‘Then I shall attend you,’ said Sir Richard.

  ‘And I,’ said the Parson.

  Gideon smiled his thanks and said: ‘If modesty permits me to say so, good sirs, I ride well. I can easily outrun Blueskin – and he knows it …’

  ‘All the more reason,’ said Sir Richard, ‘for you to be on your guard and for your friends to ensure fair play …’

  Sergeant Chadwick showed Kate’s parents into a gloomy and windowless interview room in Bakewell police station. A sickly yellow light shone onto a long table around which Peter’s mother and father, a girl of about seventeen wearing pink lipgloss, and Detective Inspector Wheeler sat awaiting their arrival. Mr and Mrs Schock immediately got up and greeted Dr and Mrs Dyer. For a moment the two mothers clung to each other. Mrs Dyer wanted so much to be able to tell Mrs Schock about Kate’s message, etched into the wall of her school, but knew that she must not. As she moved away Mrs Dyer wished it could have been Peter instead of her who had detected the citrus tang of his mother’s perfume, felt the softness of her woollen coat and sensed the tremulous emotion in her voice. It struck her that after all of this she would never again take for granted all those little details that add up to our own impression – never complete – of those we love. Mrs Dyer looked down at her own old tweed coat that always picked up Molly’s dog hairs and wondered if this formed part of Kate’s idea of her … She tried to create a picture of her daughter in her mind’s eye, as clear a picture as she could. It was surprisingly difficult. The image kept shifting. No one memory was good enough. No one memory was precise enough. And then she thought that all she really longed for was her daughter’s warmth and weight and the smell of her hair and the sound of her laughter – evidence of her physical presence. When would this waiting stop? Would it ever stop?

  Meanwhile the Inspector was asking her husband how Dr Pirretti was bearing up. He told him that she had left hospital and was feeling back to normal. The doctor had told her that the most likely cause of her collapse was stress so he had advised her not to overdo things.

  ‘Is she going to return to America?’ asked Inspector Wheeler.

  ‘No … not yet,’ replied Dr D
yer.

  The policeman observed Dr Dyer coldly and blew his nose before proceeding to start the meeting.

  ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am sure you are all wondering why I asked you here this morning at such short notice. So let me introduce you to Sarah, Sarah Kain, who is on work experience at a legal firm based in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Sarah has kindly agreed to come up from London in order to give you her remarkable testimony in person.’

  The Inspector looked expectantly at Sarah who was a sweet-faced girl with dark, bobbed hair. Sarah smiled self-consciously but said nothing.

  ‘So, Sarah … In your own time …’ prompted the Inspector.

  ‘Hi,’ she said nervously. ‘I’m ever so sorry about your kids … It must be awful for you … The Inspector asked me here to tell you about something strange I saw yesterday. You see, I think I saw Kate. Well, part of her at any rate …’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Mrs Dyer in alarm.

  ‘Well … she didn’t look very solid, more like you’d expect a ghost to look if you know what I mean … I was doing some photocopying. It was a big print run – hundreds of copies – so I sat down and read the paper for something to do. I don’t know what made me look up but when I did, there she was, standing in the middle of the room. She was wearing a gorgeous dress – just like out of a costume drama. Her hair was in ringlets and everything …’

  ‘What colour was the dress?’ asked Inspector Wheeler.

  ‘Er … Blue … yes, pale blue.’

  ‘Go on,’ said the Inspector.

  ‘I knew who it was straight off. I’d just been looking at the headlines and those photographs taken in Covent Garden. Anyway I started to cough for some reason – probably the shock of seeing her – and I couldn’t get any words out so I held up the newspaper. I pointed to the photograph of the girl and boy disappearing. “Is that you?” I managed to say. Well, she had a good look, and then stared right at me and said: “I’m in 1763. Tell them I’m in 1763.” And then she disappeared – not instantly, like turning off the telly or something, more a sort of gradual fade-out, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Could you repeat what she said?’ asked Dr Dyer.

  ‘“I’m in 1763. Tell them I’m in 1763.” Oh, and I forgot to say that she did a thumbs-up sign as well …’

  The Inspector saw Dr Dyer looking at his wife and mouthing ‘1763’ to her.

  ‘Didn’t she say anything about Peter?’ cried Mrs Schock. ‘What does it mean? Is this some elaborate hoax? You’re not expecting us to believe that our children have gone back in time, are you, Inspector? Or are we supposed to believe that our children have died and these are their ghosts?’

  ‘Forgive me, Mrs Schock,’ said the Inspector. ‘I thought you would rather hear this from Sarah herself than from the newspapers. The press agreed to hold the story until you had been informed of the development.’

  Poor Mrs Schock burst into tears and her husband sat stiffly next to her, his arms around her shoulders but clearly as distressed as she was. Dr and Mrs Dyer, the Inspector noted, were emotional but in a quite different way. Dr Pirretti was not going to cave in to his questioning, he could tell that already, but he wondered just how much pressure Dr Dyer could take before blurting out what he knew.

  ‘Why did you have to subject my wife … all of us … to this?’ asked Mr Schock. ‘It seems to me that the press are going into a hysterical frenzy and for all we know this is just another crazy story made up in the hope of getting into the headlines … Why did you ask us here?’

  Sarah gasped. ‘I’ve come all this way to tell you in person … and you accuse me of lying!’

  ‘The children’s parents are under a lot of stress, Sarah,’ explained the Inspector calmly. ‘Please don’t take it personally – we’re all very grateful to you.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Mrs Dyer.

  ‘Yes, very grateful indeed,’ said Kate’s father.

  ‘But in answer to your question, Mr Schock,’ the Inspector continued, pushing back his chair and starting to pace around the room, ‘I asked you all here not to give you answers but to admit to you our failure, despite many hundreds of man-hours, to come up with any concrete leads. None. As I have said many times before about this case, it truly is as if the children vanished into thin air. All we have to go on are these baffling sightings of what? Ghosts? Supernatural beings? At any rate they do, at first sight, appear to look like Kate and Peter. Kate was seen on the school playing fields – which I myself witnessed from a distance – then she was seen in a school common room, both of them were spotted in a supermarket car-park and then in Covent Garden and, now, Kate in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. So they are on the move. And, as they have been wearing different clothes in each new sighting, they appear to have access to a well-stocked wardrobe. Not something normally associated with ghosts …’

  The Inspector stopped pacing and sat down again and looked directly in everyone’s face in turn.

  ‘I don’t believe in ghosts, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t believe in the supernatural. But I do believe that there is a logical explanation for what has happened to Peter and Kate. My hunch is that it has something to do with the research going on at the laboratory where they disappeared. Someone must know something. Someone always knows something. And I am waiting for that someone to tell us what he or she knows.’

  The policeman stopped talking and waited. The silence made everyone profoundly uncomfortable. Dr Dyer cleared his throat and the Inspector looked directly at him. Mr and Mrs Shock, bemused, watched Inspector Wheeler staring at Kate’s father and their expressions changed. Surely Dr Dyer of all people couldn’t be concealing something?

  ‘Very well,’ said the Inspector. ‘It looks as though the mystery is not going to be cleared up today. Thank you all for coming. I shall, of course, keep you informed of any new developments. Sarah, Sergeant Chadwick will give you a lift to the station.’

  Five minutes later Inspector Wheeler peered through the venetian blinds of a window overlooking the car-park. It was with great satisfaction that he watched Mr Schock punching Dr Dyer so hard he fell backwards over the bonnet of his Land Rover.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A Race Against Time

  In which the Parson insults some macaronies

  and displays his knowledge of horse flesh

  and Gideon rides against the Tar Man

  The day of the race dawned. The July sun shone down on St James’s Park and the quack-quacking of ducks and mooing of cows drifted over towards Lord Luxon’s five-storey house which overlooked Bird Cage Walk. Quite a crowd had already gathered in front of the house.

  Grooms were attending to a pair of powerful stallions, full of energy and raring to go. They whinnied and snorted and had to be restrained from galloping off into the park. One was white and the other black. There were two carriages waiting outside the house: a coach and six in black and gold, bearing the crest of Lord Luxon, and a small but well-sprung two-seater carriage with high wheels belonging to Sir Richard. Several footmen, carrying refreshments on large silver trays, were moving between two distinct groups of people. The first comprised Sir Richard, Sidney, Parson Ledbury, Peter, Kate, Hannah and Jack. The second, at some yards distant, was made up of a dozen or so wealthy young men, still dressed in showy if somewhat dishevelled costumes from the night before. They were all talking and laughing very loudly and many of them seemed unsteady on their feet. They made frequent requests for more wine. Some of them wore extremely high wigs with a tiny hat perched on top of them whose sheer silliness made Peter want to laugh out loud.

  ‘Look at these fops and macaronies, Sidney,’ commented the Parson under his breath, making what he said perfectly audible to everyone. ‘If this is what travel to France and Italy does to one’s sense of fashion, I should strongly advise you to stay at home.’

  One of the young men, who, Peter noticed, was not only wearing white powder but also lipstick and a black beauty spot, turned towards the Parson and
hissed like a snake.

  Sir Richard tactfully encouraged his party to move away from the pretty young men in order to take a look at the horses.

  ‘Fine looking beasts the pair of them,’ pronounced the Parson who was of the opinion that anything he did not know about horses was not worth bothering about.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Sir Richard. ‘There is not much to choose between them. This race will be won by the rider.’

  ‘Just think,’ said Kate to Peter, ‘we might have the anti-gravity machine back by evening! This could be our last day in 1763!’

  Peter did not know what to reply. He knew how good a horseman Gideon was but, given that his opponent was the Tar Man, he found it difficult to feel confident.

  Suddenly the front door of the house opened and out into the hazy sunshine stepped Lord Luxon. He stood on the stone stairs dressed entirely in pale cream silk. Hannah, who was lifting up Jack so that he could pat the white horse, let out a little gasp.

  ‘Upon my word, is he not the handsomest man you ever saw …? I have heard tell of his elegance and good looks but the reality surpasses all expectation …’

  ‘Oh Hannah!’ exclaimed Kate, exasperated. ‘Lord Luxon kidnapped Gideon only the day before yesterday! What does it matter what he looks like?’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Mistress Kate,’ said Hannah. ‘Of course, Gideon is very handsome, too …’

  Lord Luxon waited for his boisterous friends to settle down and spoke in a strong, clear voice that carried across the park.

  ‘Good day to you all, ladies and gentlemen! I am happy indeed that our two contestants can count on such a distinguished audience to send them off on this fine morning. They are asked to ride, without stopping, from this place to my family’s crypt in the churchyard adjacent to Tempest House in Surrey. The first to reach the crypt shall win fifteen guineas, as well as some small trinket both gentlemen have taken a fancy to, which will be found therein …’

  There were cheers all round. Lord Luxon smiled broadly. Shutters started to open in neighbouring houses and people dressed in nightgowns and turbans hung out of windows to watch the spectacle.