A Perfect Storm Read online

  Dramatis Thingummy

  Dr Bairstow

  Director of St Mary's. All-seeing, all-knowing; a bit like the Eye of Sauron but not so benign.

  Dr Peterson/

  Superman

  Newly appointed Deputy Director. Still all aloe.

  Mrs Partridge

  PA to Dr Bairstow.

  Mr Calvin Cutter

  Co-founder and director of Cutter Cavendish Films. A man who doesn’t quite see the point of history. But he will.

  History Department

  Dr Maxwell

  Head of the History Department. Busy. Harassed.

  Mr Clerk/

  Darth Vader

  Not Dr Bairstow's father, despite statements to the contrary.

  Miss Prentiss/

  Captain America

  One of the better-behaved historians.

  Mr Atherton/

  General Zod

  See above.

  Miss Sykes/

  Hellboy

  Do not see above because she isn’t.

  Mr Bashford/The

  Great God Thor

  Victim of religious persecution.

  Angus

  Don’t ask. Just don’t bloody ask.

  SECURITY Section

  Mr Markham/

  The Flash

  Potential Head of Security. Sanctuary for unpleasant wildlife. According to Nurse Hunter.

  Mr Evans/

  Spiderman

  Security guard.

  TECHNICAL SECTION

  Mr Dieter/

  The Hulk

  Brain the size of a planet and he still can’t get through a simple door.

  Mr Lindstorm/

  Mr Fantastic

  See above. Obviously a technician thing.

  WARDROBE DEPARTMENT

  Mrs Enderby

  Head of Wardrobe. From Welwyn Garden City. Just to be clear. Not Dublin.

  MEDICAL SECTION

  Dr Stone

  Blameless in all of this.

  Nurse Hunter

  Not in a good mood.

  Mr Stone/

  Lex Luther/

  Al Capone

  Caretaker. Confused caretaker.

  R & D

  Professor Rapson

  / Professor X

  The man with the megaphone and the pair of stepladders. So many disasters waiting to happen.

  Dr Dowson/

  Dr Doom

  Providing a soft landing for the professor.

  Four large rocks

  The stars of the show.

  Panicking horses,

  roosting swans

  and aggressive

  goldfish.

  A Perfect Storm

  Prologue

  People think the life of an historian is packed full of excitement, danger, romance, glamour and lashings of History. And yes, usually it is, although there’s often a great deal more excitement, danger and lashings than a normal person might be comfortable with. But since at St Mary’s lack of normality is in our job spec, we generally manage to cope.

  And, believe it or not, coming to a spectacularly nasty end somewhere and sometime in the past is not our only function. After all, we are the Institute of Historical Research and part of our job is actually that – research. We assist authors, educational establishments, private citizens, pretty well anyone who writes to us for help, really. We lecture at educational facilities and societies and, occasionally, we advise TV or holo producers on knotty historical problems. We research the historical facts for whatever epic they’re planning, bundle it all up and send it off to them so they can ignore it. Mrs Enderby provides the details of the costumes to be worn and sometimes the Wardrobe Department is asked to make them as well. She’s been nominated for several awards and we’re very proud of her, and it brings in a modest but much needed income because, according to Dr Bairstow, you could fund a small city for a year on what it takes to keep St Mary’s up and running for an afternoon. At this moment, we generally nod sympathetically and edge towards the door.

  Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that we, the Institute of Historical Research at St Mary’s Priory, to give us our correct title, do other things besides endangering ourselves getting to grips with History. Sometimes, we can endanger ourselves by remaining quietly at home.

  Take last week, for example … not only did we not have any current assignments, we hadn’t been up and running properly for some time. A very nasty explosion in Hawking had taken out the hangar and most of the pods inside it. Markham, Guthrie and Leon had been badly injured. And then a rock fell on me in Constantinople – hey, these things happen.

  So, given that everything had been very quiet for a very long time while we regrouped and rebuilt, you’d think that the opportunities for anything catastrophic to occur would be few.

  Wouldn’t you?

  MONDAY

  Every day begins with tea. That’s a given. Leon and I take it in turns and that particular Monday morning, it was Leon’s. I lay still and listened to him hobbling slowly around our rooms, getting things ready. It takes him ages these days, but he insists on carrying on as normal and I wasn’t going to argue. Well, not very much. I always kept my eyes closed and pretended I couldn’t hear him making his very slow and painful way across the room. He was recovering, but it was a long process. He was due back at Time Police HQ in a few days for yet another course of treatment, and I would be back to work next week, so we were making the most of these last few days together.

  We always took our time and drank our tea in bed. I insisted on it. Not for any sloppy, sentimental reasons, you understand; mostly to give Leon a face-saving moment to rest before heaving himself to his feet to embark on his shower, shit and shave routine. Sometimes, on his less good mornings, it nearly broke my heart, but he wouldn’t accept any help, so I just had to grit my teeth and let him get on with it, cheering him on with word and gesture and by comparing his top speed unfavourably to that of continental drift.

  We always walked downstairs to breakfast together as well. Very slowly. We do have a heavy goods lift which is used to get the big stuff up and down the building – it had once had an illegal mammoth in it, but it’s probably best for everyone if we don’t mention that. Leon wouldn’t use it even without the smell. Lifts are for wimps, apparently. Real men use stairs.

  We split up in the dining room. He said, ‘See you later,’ and limped off to the techies’ table, and I joined Peterson and Markham. We’d got into the habit of eating together a year or so ago when we’d done something naughty and I’d been suspended and no one else wanted to have anything to do with us. I’d been reinstated, but as Markham pointed out, for some strange reason still no one seemed to want to have anything to do with us. Peterson and I would shake our heads in bafflement.

  Peterson surveyed our civilian clothes. ‘Am I the only one in uniform these days?’

  Markham and I carefully inspected him and then each other. ‘Looks like it,’ he said cheerfully.

  Leon wasn’t the only one struggling with severe injuries. Markham had been hurt in the same incident and Major Guthrie was still upstairs in Sick Bay. They let him out for an hour every now and then, and he was improving, but he would never be Head of Security again. That honour would fall to Markham on his own return to duty.

  ‘I’m due my final check-up next week,’ he said, care-fully building himself the world’s biggest bacon butty. ‘So, I’m sending in Max this morning to soften them up. Anyone who’s had to deal with her will welcome me with open arms.’

  ‘Why are you worrying?’ I said. ‘With your super-powers, surely Nurse Hunter will pass you fit for duty.’

  ‘He’s never been fit for duty,’ said Peterson scathing-ly. ‘Even before he crash landed on
Constantinople.’

  Markham ignored him and, having now constructed an edifice similar in size and shape to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, was attempting to get some portion of it into his mouth.

  We watched in silence and then left him to get on with it. There are some things even an historian won’t get involved in.

  ‘So, you have a busy day ahead of you today, Max.’

  I did. I had my final medical to blag my way through, followed by an interview with Dr Bairstow. ‘I have to say, it’ll be good to get back into my blues.’

  ‘If you pass your medical.’

  I waved a piece of toast in a manner that conveyed my complete confidence that I would sail through it rather in the manner of the good ship Revenge taking on the Spanish in 1591. Actually, she was ‘outgunned, outfought and outnumbered fifty-three to one’, but you get the point.

  Beside me, by the sound of it, Markham’s butty was getting the better of him.

  ‘It’s a bit like watching one of those giant pythons eat a goat,’ complained Peterson. ‘And then the goat wins.’

  Markham made a complicated noise indicating he needed to keep his strength up, chewing valiantly until he could say to Peterson, ‘You still on for this evening?’

  ‘What’s happening this evening?’ I asked.

  He’d taken another bite by then so it was left to Peterson to say, ‘Pub crawl.’

  Ah yes, I’d forgotten. To mark our return to normal working – or as close as we could ever get to normal working – St Mary’s was embarking on a traditional pub crawl and tonight was the night. Markham, cheeks bulging like an overworked hamster, beamed at me and tried to speak.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, getting up. ‘Watching him could put my recovery back months. I’m off. See you later, guys.’

  I trotted down the long corridor, just because I could, and took the stairs two at a time, just because I could – and also because I thought it would give me a healthy colour when I arrived – and presented myself in Sick Bay at exactly one minute to nine.

  They shoved me into the scanner, peered at various read-outs, muttered to each other and then Dr Stone turned up, looking younger than ever. I have a theory he’s aging backwards. I’m going to bounce in there one day to be confronted by a foetus with a stethoscope.

  ‘Any pain?’ he asked cheerfully.

  ‘Only when I do this.’

  He stared at me. ‘Well, don’t do it then.’

  I nodded obediently. He ticked a box, tore off a slip, handed it to me, and pronounced me fit for duty.

  Yay!

  Next thing on today’s list of Things to Do was Dr Bairstow. He wouldn’t take kindly to me wandering around in unnecessary civilian clothing, so I changed into my blues, smoothing the material fondly because it had been a while, rammed in a couple of extra hairpins for good luck, and shot off to see him.

  His desk was ominously empty. It’s never cluttered because he doesn’t work like that, but there’s usually a file or two on it somewhere so that he can fiddle with them before unleashing his next verbal thunderbolt. On the positive side, though, things had been so quiet recently that I really didn’t see how this could shape up to be quite the blood-chilling, conscience-examining precursor to disaster it usually was.

  I got that wrong.

  ‘Two things this morning, Dr Maxwell,’ he said. ‘Neither good. Do you have any particular preference as to which disaster should fall upon you first?’

  ‘None, sir,’ I said cheerfully. I was a recovering invalid. He wasn’t going to give me hard time.

  I got that wrong as well.

  ‘Very well. We shall begin with this.’ He opened a drawer and laid a manuscript on his desk.

  This particular manuscript did not come as any surprise to me. I had a copy on my own desk.

  I pulled out the specs I now have to wear, thanks to the cunning deviousness – deviosity? – of our new doctor and plonked them on my nose. They were, as usual, covered in greasy fingerprints and, as usual, I thought how much better I could see before the intervention of the medical profession. I’d chosen horn rims because, as I’d said to Peterson, they made me look both intelligent and sexy. He’d patted me on the shoulder and told me he’d always admired my capacity for self-deception, and I was so happy to see this flash of the old Tim Peterson that I’d let it go.

  To look at him now you would think he was perfectly normal, but a little while ago he’d lost Helen Foster – my great friend and the love of his life. I wondered if he was dealing with this in the same way he had dealt with the wound to his arm – keeping it all inside and confiding in no one. I wondered if Dr Bairstow was aware, because strictly speaking, now that he was Deputy Director, Peterson was his responsibility. He must be, surely – Dr Bairstow is a great deal cleverer than I am. (Don’t tell him I said that because he would only respond by saying there are single-celled amoebas and coffee tables who are a great deal cleverer than I am.)

  Anyway, I shoved on my specs and picked up the manuscript. The title page read The Time of My Life by David Sands.

  There were many bookmarks sticking out from the pages. I’m a godless heathen – I turn down the corners. Dr Bairstow obviously walks in a state of grace because his corners remained unturned.

  ‘Like stones,’ I said chattily.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said frostily.

  ‘No stone unturned, sir.’

  ‘What stone?’

  There’s always a point when I must make the decision whether to continue winding him up in what is always a vain attempt to distract him from the matter in hand, or to jump straight in.

  ‘So how can I help you this morning, sir?’

  ‘You’ve seen this?’

  ‘I have indeed, sir. It’s very good, don’t you think? Our Mr Sands is making quite a name for himself these days.’

  ‘Did nothing particular strike you about his book?’

  ‘Well, it’s very different from anything he’s done before, sir.’

  David Sands wrote thrillers. Very good ones. I had them on my own shelves. And I believe Dr Dowson had purchased a dozen or so copies to put in the library. Rumours that Miss Lee had stood over him while he placed the order were, apparently, completely founded.

  ‘He seems now to have moved from that genre and into the realms of science fiction and written a story concerning…’ he paused, gathered all his resources, and enunciated distastefully, ‘…time travel.’

  ‘Well, people do, sir. It’s a very popular genre.’

  ‘Have you read it?’

  ‘Yes indeed. He sent me a copy.’

  ‘Were you struck by the many similarities to St Mary’s?’

  ‘Not really, sir. His protagonists appear to be a bunch of highly-trained and well-organised scientists who travel up and down the timeline by means of some sort of time-travelling device they wear on their wrists, having all sorts of exciting adventures along the way. It’s all very high-tech and efficient. They never end up in the wrong place. No one is ever set on fire. No one is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread. No one ever catches dysentery and no one has inappropriate sex with anyone else. Really, sir, I couldn’t see any similarities to St Mary’s at all.’

  ‘The organisation is called St Christopher’s.’

  ‘Well, that just goes to reinforce my point, sir. St Christopher is the patron saint of travellers. A very natural choice.’

  ‘If this book is published there will be copies of it everywhere.’

  ‘Including top of the bestsellers list, sir.’

  ‘Questions will be asked.’

  ‘What sort of questions?’ I said, getting in one of my own.

  ‘Such as how could I allow this to be published?’

  ‘How could you stop it, sir? He doesn’t work for St Mary’s any longer.’

  David Sands had resigned some time ago, along with Gareth Roberts, a small and noticeably beardless Welshman. We – the History Department – had got ourselves into not a little trouble
and they’d both stormed out. I’d been present at the time and knew for a fact there had been no question of getting either of them to sign any non-disclosure agreements.

  We regarded each other across the vast expanse of his immaculate desk.

  He turned to the title page. ‘The Time of My Life by David Sands. With grateful thanks to Dr Gareth Roberts of the University of Ceredigion for technical advice.’

  I beamed. ‘Oh, that’s nice, sir. Gareth’s got his doctorate.’

  ‘That was not the point I was trying to make.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ I waited for the point. Sometimes our interviews are rather like the Battle of Kadesh, when the Egyptians took on the Hittites – no clear winner but each side claims victory afterwards. I put my forces on standby and prepared to repel boarders.

  He unleashed his front rank. ‘I do not believe I can allow this to be published.’

  I brought up my archers. ‘With respect, sir, I’m not sure you can prevent it.’

  He flattened them into the dust. ‘One telephone call should be sufficient.’

  The remains of my forces fled. Cowardly scum. ‘But why?’

  ‘I believe it would be in the best interests of St Mary’s. I have nothing against Mr Sands or his work. Indeed, I have enjoyed his books greatly, but this hits too close to home, Max.’

  He marshalled his forces for the victory parade and handed me the manuscript. ‘It might be easier and gentler coming from you.’ And razed my capital city to the ground. Great. Thanks very much Dr Bairstow.

  I took it reluctantly. This really wasn’t in my remit. ‘But sir…’

  Too late. He was moving on to the second unpleasant item on the agenda.

  He passed a file across the desk

  My heart sank. They say your chickens always come home to roost. Well, this one certainly had. As I’ve already said, some time ago, I’d got us all into serious trouble and, as part of my punishment, the Boss had set me to fundraising for St Mary’s. I’d seeded the entire country with leaflets, adverts, podcasts, Facebook pages, you name it, all advertising St Mary’s and the services we could offer. And, astonishingly, not only had one of those seeds germinated, it had gone on to bear fruit. I strongly doubted, however, that I was the best person to harvest the … the … oh, sod it – strangled by my own analogy.