The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(100)

When he arrived in Woking in the early hours, the place was immersed in an idyllic calm. It was a cold but beautiful night.

Tom spent almost an hour reading letter boxes before coming to the one marked Wells. He was standing in front of a darkened three-storey house enclosed by a not too high fence. After studying the author’s house for a few moments, Tom took a deep breath and climbed over the fence. There was no point in waiting any longer.

He crossed the garden reverentially, as though he were walking into a chapel, climbed the steps to the front door, and was about to ring when his hand stopped short of the bell chime. The echo of a horse’s hooves shattering the nocturnal silence made him freeze. He turned slowly as he heard the animal draw near, and almost immediately saw it stop outside the author’s house.

A shiver ran down his spine as he watched the rider, barely more than a shadow, dismount and open the gate. Was it one of Murray’s thugs? The fellow made a swift gesture that left him in no doubt, pulling a gun from his pocket and pointing it straight at him. Tom instantly dived to one side, rolling across the lawn and disappearing into the darkness. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the stranger try to follow his sudden movement with the gun. Tom had no intention of making himself an easy target.

He leapt to his feet and in two strides had reached the fence. He was convinced he would feel the warm sting of the bullet entering his back at any moment, but apparently he was moving too quickly, and it did not happen. He clambered over the fence and pelted down the street until he reached the fields. He ran for at least five minutes. Only then, panting for breath, did he allow himself to stop and look behind him to see whether Gilliam’s thug was following him. All he could see was black night enfolding everything. He had managed to lose him. He was safe, at least for the moment, for he doubted that his killer would bother looking for him in that pitch blackness. He would no doubt go back to London to report to Murray. Feeling calmer, Tom found a place behind some bushes and settled down for the night.

The next morning, after making sure the thug had really gone, he would return to the author’s house and ask for his help, as planned.





29


“You saved a man’s life using your imagination,” Jane had said to him only a few hours earlier, and her words were still echoing in his head as he watched the dawn light flood in through the tiny attic window, revealing the contours of the furniture and their two figures intertwined like a Greek statue on the seat of the time machine. When he had suggested to his wife they might find a use for the seat, this was not exactly what he had had in mind, but he had thought it best not to upset her, and especially not now. Wells gazed at her tenderly. Jane was breathing evenly, asleep in his arms after giving herself to him with renewed enthusiasm, reviving the almost violent fervor of the first months. Wells had watched this passion ebb away with the resigned sorrow of one who knows only too well that passionate love does not last forever; it merely transfers to other bodies. But, there was no law, apparently, against its embers being rekindled by a timely breeze, and this discovery had left a rather foolish grin on the author’s face which he had not seen reflected in any of his mirrors for a long time. And it was all due to the words floating in his head: “You saved a man’s life using your imagination,” words that had made him shine once more in Jane’s eyes, and which I trust you have also remembered, because they link this scene and Wells’s first appearance in our tale, which I informed you would not be his last.

When his wife went down to make breakfast, the author decided to remain sitting on the machine a while longer. He took a deep breath, contented and extraordinarily at ease with himself.

There were times in his life when Wells considered himself an exceptionally ridiculous human being, but he seemed now to be going through a phase where he was able see himself in a different, more charitable, and why not say it, a more admiring light.

He had enjoyed saving a life, as much because of Jane’s unexpected offering, as for the fantastic gift he had been given as a result: this machine that had arisen from his imagination, this ornate sleigh that could travel through time, at least this was what they had made Andrew Harrington believe. Contemplating it now by daylight, Wells had to admit that when he had given it that cursory description in his novel, he never imagined it might turn out to be such a beautiful object if someone actually decided to build it.

Feeling like a naughty child, he sat up ceremoniously, placed his hand with exaggerated solemnity on the glass lever to the right of the control panel, and smiled wistfully. If only the thing actually did work. If only he could hop from era to era, travel through time at his whim until he reached its farthest frontier—if such a thing existed—go to the place where time began or ended. But the machine could not be used for that. In fact, the machine had no use at all. And now that he had removed the gadget that lit the magnesium, it could not even blind its occupant.

“Bertie,” Jane called from downstairs.

Wells leapt up with a start, as though ashamed for her to discover him playing with his toy. He straightened his clothes, rumpled from their earlier passionate embraces, and hurried down stairs.

“There’s a young man to see you,” Jane said, a little uneasily.

“He says his name is Captain Derek Shackleton.” Wells paused at the foot of the stairs. Derek Shackleton? Why did the name rang a bell? “He’s waiting in the sitting room. But he said something else, Bertie …” Jane went on, hesitatingly, unsure what tone of voice she should adopt to express what she was about to say: “He says he’s from … the year 2000.” From the year 2000? Now Wells knew where he had heard that name before.