And the Rest Is History(107)

St Mary’s: I am most grateful for this show of understanding and pleased that a resolution to this conflict has been proposed. I look forward to joining you later.

TP: Would you like to borrow my leg-warmers?

St Mary’s: What a kind thought. Which way is the bar?

And then, of course, there’s the proper way of doing things.

I spun – well, lurched – around and was in his face, demanding to know what his problem was.

He replied that I, along with every other member of St Mary’s, was his problem and that every time he turned around there was another of us scuttling along the corridor. Like rats.

I replied that we were here only because the Time Police make such a piss-boiling cock-up of everything they touch that they need St Mary’s to sort it all out for them.

Any reservations he might have had about thumping an injured historian went straight out of the window. They were closely followed by any sensible qualms I might have had about taking on two enormous, state-sponsored bullies while in less than perfect health myself. We squared up to each other. I was all set to go. My boys were upstairs in pieces, and now the god of historians had presented me with two of the people responsible for that, an empty corridor, and just the sort of mood to do some damage. I take back everything I’ve ever said about the god of historians. As deities go – top banana!

Fortunately for all of us, at that moment the lift door opened revealing Captain Ellis on the threshold with Matthew at his side.

Damn and blast. Obviously, I didn’t want Matthew to see his mother brawling in public. We all stepped back, held a small competition to see who could summon the falsest smile, while making it absolutely clear that hostilities had only ceased because of the presence of a senior officer and a small boy, and began to edge past each other.

‘Are they going to shoot Mummy again?’ piped Matthew. I thought I detected a slight note of anticipation.

‘No one’s shooting anyone,’ said Ellis reassuringly, and stared across at his men, who said nothing but managed to convey their disappointment at this sad state of affairs.

‘Where are you off to?’ I said, donning my mother hat.

‘Time Map,’ said Matthew simply, obviously losing interest now he’d ascertained no one was about to shoot Mummy.

Ellis just grinned. They disappeared around a corner, the officers cast me unloving looks, and I pushed off while I still could.



Obviously someone had a word with Commander Hay. I suspect she had a word with Dr Bairstow. Who turned up to have a word with me. Apparently, we were all to be shipped back to St Mary’s. Even the still unconscious Leon. I think it was felt that relations between our two organisations would be immeasurably improved if we saw much less of each other for a while. A bit like marriage, I suppose. Anyway, mutual relief at seeing the back of each other caused us all to be quite civil to each other and, by the end of the week, we were back at St Mary’s. I felt better at once, although Dr Bairstow warned me that any fighting in the corridors would result in his extreme displeasure. I was so happy to be home that I was easily able to ignore the injustice of his comments and just smiled and nodded.



I wasn’t around when Hunter and Markham were reunited, but I was sitting with Guthrie when Peterson and Grey turned up.

‘Just like old times again,’ slurred Markham from beneath his mass of flexi-bandages and tubes. Very little of him was visible, which Peterson said was a huge improvement, and had he considered making this his permanent look.

I thought he looked like a badly wrapped Egyptian mummy, and Guthrie, speaking in a painful whisper, likened him to one of those adverts for toilet paper, except the puppy did it better.

Peterson was pinning a sign above Guthrie’s bed.

Here lies One-eyed Guthrie, twinned with Cyclops, Nick Fury, Mad-Eye Moody, Rooster Cogburn, Odin and Horatio Nelson.

When he was satisfied it was level, he climbed down off the chair, put a very brief hand on Guthrie’s shoulder, and went off to sit with Markham.

Grey, confronted with the wreck that was Guthrie, sat wordless, silent tears pouring down her cheeks. If – when – Leon ever opened his eyes, I was going to be at least as bad. I felt so sorry for her, but any sympathy would just push her right over the edge. And maybe the rest of us, too. Guthrie looked at me through his bandages, appealing for help.

I nodded.

‘I know why you’re here,’ he said to her, carefully not noticing her tears. He had to turn his head to see me as well. ‘I’m less clear about you, but that just about sums up our working relationship.’

I beamed at him. ‘I’m visiting the sick.’

He nodded over to Leon, still asleep in his cubicle and still surrounded by medical machinery. ‘Don’t you have your own sick to visit?’

‘He’s not awake yet.’

‘He’s not stupid, is he? If I’d known that I would find you crouched at my bedside, then I wouldn’t have woken up either.’

‘Hey, I’m sick too, you know.’

‘That is pretty much the consensus. Both here and at Time Police HQ.’

‘Aren’t sick people supposed to be saintly and patient? That’s where the word comes from.’

‘I’ve worked with you for more years than I care to remember. On at least three separate occasions that I can remember, I have had to exercise the greatest self-control to refrain from shooting you. I have also not stabbed you, poisoned you, drowned you, or pushed you out of a window. And don’t think that last one wasn’t a struggle. I have, at all times, conducted myself with the greatest professional decorum. I’ve never even boxed your ears and I can’t begin to describe what a temptation that’s been. So yes, saintly exactly describes me.’