Parallel Loop
The part-Afro woman leaned across the desk and pressed the 'record' button on the tape recorder.
"Detective Inspector Millicent Hampshire and Detective Constable Tommy Hammond," she said into the microphone. "Investigating the unexplained fatal fire at the home of the late Doctor Douglas Anderson. Interview with Doctor Lester Waybridge commences at 14.35 on 23rd March."
D.I. Hampshire looked up from the microphone, drew a breath and wondered how to start on an odd interview. She decided a few safe facts were the best opening gambit. She looked at the elderly archaeologist. Balding and bearded, he looked close to or beyond retiring age.
"You are Doctor Lester Waybridge?" she asked for the tape.
"I am."
"You lecture in archaeology at Witchmoor University?"
"I do," the archaeologist agreed. "This is my last year. I retire in June this year."
"You visited the home of Doctor Douglas Anderson yesterday evening, just around the time of the fatal fire?"
"Just before," agreed the doctor. "It started as I was leaving and I raised the alarm."
"I gather from the report of the officer who attended the scene," Millicent said, coming to the potentially puzzling part of the matter, "that you admitted talking to Doctor Anderson."
Waybridge nodded.
"Can you tell me," Millicent asked, "What an elderly archaeologist and a 42 year old physicist had to talk about."
Waybridge hesitated. "I think I'd like to tell you the whole story from the beginning, then you can ask me questions."
Millicent saw no objection to that. "All right," she agreed.
"Do you know Bolling Hall in Bradford?" Waybridge asked.
"I went there on a school trip years ago," Millicent said, "But I don't remember much about it."
"Let me remind you," Waybridge said. "Bolling Hall is an architectural nightmare when taken as a whole, but a historical treasure. It's roughly orientated east and west and faces south. Somewhere in the thirteenth century someone built a square tower, three stories high with narrow windows and a flat, battlemented roof. It was built to be defended. In the fourteenth or early fifteenth century the first addition was made, extending the tower to the north, two stories high. This provided kitchens and servant's quarters. In Tudor times a two-story extension eastwards provided a panelled entrance hall, drawing room and a couple of bedrooms. In Elizabethan times a large dining hall was built on eastwards. An early eighteenth century extension still further eastwards nearly balanced the original tower, except that it was a different shape and not quite as tall. Finally there was a Regency extension northwards from the last one. At every stage the original detail of the architecture was kept - all the panelling, fireplaces, cornices, mouldings, you name it."
"Bradford Council, who own the property, maintains it very carefully. When they authorised some repairs to the oldest section last September, they asked the Archaeology Department of Witchmoor University to come in and study the structure closely while the floor was up, and to supervise the repairs. I worked the Bolling Hall project for two or three days each week from October to the beginning of March of this year. My principal assistants were a doctorate student called Martin Jones and a member of my department called Mary Hewitt."
"While we were working on the restoration, Mary asked about the doors: one each in the north and the south walls - which was the original one and which had been made when the first extension was done? I didn't think there was any argument. The south-facing door had a pointed arch with carved stone surround, while the one leading into the extension was plain and square. However, her question did lead us to look closely at the north door and the fireplace, and to notice that the wall one side was much thicker than the other. While I was examining the corner, with the stone paving slabs up, I noticed what appeared to be the edge of a step. We took some test soundings and found a hollow space. When we took out a section of the wall, it revealed a spiral staircase leading down to a cellar or dungeon."
"There was no mention of the cellar in any record of Bolling Hall and it appeared possible it was blocked when the first extension was built, back in the fourteenth century, though goodness knows why. Anyway, I was excited. I got the workmen doing the renovations to rig up a lamp on a long lead. We were cautious in our descent, but I led the way."
"The steps did indeed lead down to a cellar, though not very large. The place was stone built and floored and had every appearance of being the same age as the tower, though there was nothing about the structure we could actually date. The place was airless, with no ventilation I could see, and rather damp. The space was quickly explored but contained some very odd items. There was a skeleton, a jug and mug and the remains of a plate, along with a carefully sealed wooden chest. The latter turned out to be smeared all over with candle wax, which was responsible for its remarkable state of preservation. Needless to say we took lots of photographs and then moved the various artefacts back to the University to study them properly."
"What we had discovered was puzzling in the extreme and we kept most of it confidential for a time. Indeed, some of the most extraordinary aspects of the finds I kept from Martin and Mary. The press were only told of finding the dungeon and the skeleton and the mug and so on next to the bones. We mentioned those to the press and admitted that it looked like the individual had been deliberately left in the dungeon and the entrance bricked up. That was so sensational that they never asked for more information. We sent the bones to the British Museum to be carbon dated. The date we were given was so impossible that I gave out to everyone - including my colleagues - that they dated to the late fourteenth century - around 1360 to 1380, which is about the time the first extension was built. I got the date from what was inside the box. We carbon dated a sliver of wood from the chest itself to a pretty similar date to that I had been giving out."
"It was only partly true. Neither Martin nor Mary could throw any light on events - but I could have done. Inside the box were a book and some sheets of manuscript. That told me the story, but I did not mention the manuscript to my colleagues. The box was sealed with candle wax. I opened it when nobody else was around and made no list of the contents."
The archaeologist took a drink of water and paused as if gathering his thoughts. He had a far away look as he sighed and said: "You're not going to believe the rest of the story," he said. He took another sip of water, sighed and continued.
"The box or chest was about two feet square by one foot deep - about sixty centimetres by sixty centimetres by thirty or so centimetres - and made of wood. The base was flat with small wooden feet carved in the shape of something like lion's paws. The lid was hinged and there was a hasp held in place by means of a wooden peg rather like a matchstick. In fact, the first anomaly was that it turned out to be a modern matchstick, carbon dated later as contemporary. The box wasn't locked but, as I said earlier, it was sealed with wax that, when analysed, turned out to be hardened animal fat - probably tallow of the kind used in medieval candles. That was the second anomaly - it carbon dated to around 1360 or 1380."
"I removed the matchstick from the hasp and opened the chest carefully. It was held shut only by the wax, which also sealed out the damp, so that the contents were very well preserved. Inside was a beautifully bound, handwritten book. It was in Latin, but it turned out to be a very early copy of the Holy Grail story about Parcival and his quest. That will be a very valuable asset to some museum and represents a considerable addition to our knowledge of the Grail story."
"Now, I have admitted to the chest, the wax and the book - all in keeping with the likely age of the cellar or dungeon. My department at the University was very excited and shared the reflected glory. I did not, however, mention the carbon dating of the bones or the matchstick. Nor did I mention the other great anomaly. The biggest of all."
"Inside the pages of the book were some hand written notes. They were in modern English and the writer appeared to have used a biro or gel-in
k pen. They were initially dated 23rd March 2006 and the writer was Douglas Anderson. They told a story which is difficult to believe."
Waybridge paused as if he expected to be challenged but neither DI. Hampshire nor her DC said anything, so he continued.
II
"The anomalous manuscript consisted of notes written by Douglas Anderson. When I tell you his story you will understand why I had to talk to him personally."
"Douglas Anderson had discovered a way of moving between parallel universes. Now I didn't really know anything about the theory, but I gathered that he rigged up two wooden posts like doorposts, with a current passed around a combination of quartz points and electromagnets. When the current flowed the door was opened and varying the current gave some control over what universe you stepped into. Apparently Anderson had these things in his garage and on this occasion he was experimenting with taking a second set of 'door posts' through the first ones and setting them up to see whether you could open a second doorway parallel to the first."
"According to the notes, he walked through the doorway and into a world that seemed more or less empty: just tufty grass stretching as far as the eye could see in any direction. It wasn't winter either: it was warm enough to make him open and think about taking off his padded jacket. Seems he set up the two posts he'd brought with him to make another doorway. He took his time about setting them up and juggled with the settings to get them as near identical as those on the first doorway as he could. He pulled at the cable - and he knocked over something flammable. The liquid ran through the first doorway and flared up. Not wanting to be stuck in the parallel universe and with his return blocked by the flames, he stepped through the second doorway, before the power was cut off. He was just in time. The cable must have burned through and cut off the power supply: the door between the worlds was closed."
"When he looked around, he was standing close to a track through a thick forest. The trees and undergrowth formed an almost impenetrable barrier, through which the track cut a clear path, which he had no choice but to follow. It was cold with a chilly wind. The trees showed no sign of spring, though some of the undergrowth was evergreen. Other areas below the trees were a tangle of brambles and briars, but lifeless. It looked, in short, like a cold March day and he zipped up his padded jacket again."
"Anderson said in the notes that he simply started walking along the track, carrying the 'door posts' and the length of cable with him. He wrote that he had some idea of finding another power supply and reopening the doorway, though he wasn't clear whether he could just plug in the power supply. He had no idea of where he was. I think the question of 'when' was more important than 'where', but he didn't know that."
"After thirty or forty minutes walking he came to a small clearing in the forest with several thatched wooden huts around a patch of cultivated land. There were at least two kinds of plant, one of them like some variety of cabbage and another that looked as if it might have been a root crop of some kind. Both appeared to have gone to seed, which implied that there had been no harvesting the previous autumn. There was no sign of life and nothing moved. Anderson put down the doorposts to investigate."
"Beside one of the huts were six crude mounds of earth, suggestive of graves, recently, but not newly, dug. One of the huts had a wooden fence round it and smelt of pig. There was a break in the fence, however, and the pig or pigs were gone. Inside one hut was a decaying body showing the signs of the depredations of carrion eaters, probable rats, because he caught a glimpse of one. It was not possible to make out the dress style, but hanging up on a peg behind the door was a smock and cloak with a distinctly medieval look. He was not in the hut for long - but long enough to be bitten by a flea."
"There was nothing in the hamlet to eat but the well water looked clean, so Anderson risked a drink before he leaned the two 'door-posts' against the side of a hut and walked on. The trees were endless and the scenery unchanging. The path kept steadily in a generally southerly direction and climbed steadily too. Anderson was sweating in spite of the chill wind. After over an hour and a half and with light beginning to fade he came upon another clearing, rather larger than the first."
"There was another cluster of huts, which one might euphemistically call a village, as poor and fragile as those he had seen earlier, a rather larger cultivated area and a square, stone tower about three stories high. I recognised his description as probably being the first stage in the development of Bolling Hall, so the date would be somewhere in the mid to late thirteenth century. It occurred to me, even before I read on, that a date around 1360 to 1365, when the plague - the 'black death' - was ravaging England, which was quite likely. In view of what happened next, such a date seems almost certain: perhaps 1362."
"There were people about and, though nobody spoke a language he could communicate in, Anderson made it clear that he was lost, hungry and needed help. He said that he was originally given the cellar to sleep in because there was nowhere else in the tower. He wasn't a prisoner. Then after a day or two he began to fall ill. The flea-bite he received in the hut in the first village had no doubt been responsible for his catching the plague. When his hosts recognised the plague, they walled up the cellar, presumably in something of a panic to protect themselves. At least some of them survived, because the rest of Bolling Hall was built."
III
D.I. Hampshire and D.C. Hammond could both see why Waybridge had been anxious to look up Doctor Anderson - assuming that this fantastic tale was true, and some of it was verifiable. However, it was clear to Hammond that Anderson couldn't be both dead in a twenty-first century fire and buried in the 1360s ... or was it clear? His mind boggled at the implications of 'parallel universes' or, in this case, 'parallel loops', if there was such a thing.
"So you read these notes and decided to see Doctor Anderson?" said Millicent.
"Not quite," Waybridge told her. "First I checked to see whether there was such a person, where he lived and a little about him. Discreetly, of course."
Millicent nodded.
"When I found that there was such a person living locally and employed in the Physics Department at Bradford University it gave me pause for thought. If he was in Witchmoor now, he wasn't yet dead in the 1360s. I could, therefore warn him of the risk. Besides, I was fascinated by the idea of parallel universes, though I knew very little about the concept. Accordingly I rang up Douglas Anderson at work and asked if we could meet. I told him a little of my find and he invited me to his home."
"You went there on Sunday the 23rd March?" Millicent asked.
"Two pm," Waybridge agreed. "I thought that if he was meeting me he couldn't be using the doorway."
"And he told you the science behind his device?" she remarked.
"No. He told me the science behind the theory of parallel universes. He carefully avoided giving me any clues about the device. I got those from the notes."
"He started by explaining a hologram to me. He said I had to understand that as a first step. To form a hologram, he told me, you split a beam of laser light: half falls directly on the light sensitive plate and the other half bounces off the subject and onto the plate. What is recorded is the interference between the two halves of the beam. Shine a light through the negative at the same angle as the original beam and you get the hologram. I could follow that, and Anderson went on to explain that a lot of quantum physicists think the whole universe is holographic: what you might call a projection from a higher level."
"Doctor Anderson said that he found the most interesting feature of a hologram is that if you change the angle of the beam ever so slightly, you can store another hologram in the same space. Potentially, Anderson claimed, if the universe is holographic, you could store an infinite number of parallel universes in the same space. He had been experimenting with travel between them."
Millicent could follow the logical progression, though believing it was another matter. "How did he take your warning?" she asked.
"Seriously, I tho
ught. He took the notes and read them in some detail. He asked to keep them to copy and said he would think about the warning."
"He kept the notes?"
"Yes."
"So where are they now?"
"I presume," Waybridge said, "that they went up in the fire."
Hammond thought that might be very convenient.
"You have no proof your story, then," Millicent said.
"I've every proof of my own part of it," Waybridge said. "I also told you what Anderson's notes said, or the general drift of them. I've no proof of that."
"Where were you when you first saw the fire?"
"I had already climbed into my car," the archaeologist said. "I saw smoke coming from under the garage door. I started to get out and go to ring the doorbell again, but while I was wondering how it could be - a matter of seconds - there was an explosion from the garage which blew the doors partly open and covered everything in sheets of flame, so I phoned the fire brigade instead."
"An explosion?" Hammond said.
"The petrol tank of his car or something." Waybridge agreed.
Millicent drummed her fingers on the table. The archaeologist had been to the house just before the fire. He seen the fire and raised the alarm. There was nothing to suggest that he had anything to do with causing it. The fire had started in the garage of a three-story town house with the garage on the ground floor. There was no real evidence of any foul play and therefore nothing to keep Waybridge at the station. He was merely a person who happened to be around just before a fatal fire. The story was strange, perhaps, but so what?
"Well, thank you for your time, Doctor Waybridge," Millicent said, "I'll get some of the interview typed up as a statement and get you to sign it. Otherwise I think that's all."
"Waybrdge rose and Tommy Hammond saw him out. When Hammond returned, Millicent was still sitting at the table, fingers lightly drumming on her notepad.
"It can't have been Doctor Anderson's bones in the cellar of Bolling Hall," Hammond said. "We found his body in the house."
"It can't have been Doctor Anderson," Millicent agreed. "At least, I don't see how that would be possible, even in a parallel loop. But Anderson had a 21 year old stepson who's missing after the fire. I've been ringing around checking for him. By coincidence he was also called Douglas Anderson and by yet another coincidence he was a doctorate student in his father's department at the university. The housekeeper says he was into whatever experiments his father was doing. "