‘Now, in Jamaica, I was drunk like a sot one night, and a man wagered me all my pay on a last throw of the dice. Nay, I should have said nay, but yea, I did agree, and thanks that I be fortunate, for I won the dice, and I turns to him and asks him what he will give me for my winnings. He laughs like an open grate in the ground, and throws a rough bag at me.
‘I opens the bag, and in it there be a clock, yea, broken and beautiful, lost of many jewels, and with a double face, and strange pictures marking it. I took it back with me on the voyage, and I tried to mend it as I went, and mend it I did, but no matter what I did, it ticked awhile and stopped, ticked awhile and stopped, and there was nothing I could do.
‘One night, the waves like toppling towers, the wind like the wind at the ends of the earth, a cabin boy from Jamaica creeps up to me, his eyes wide as the road to damnation, and, says he, the clock be voodoo, only bring bad luck, says he. He says to throw it overboard, and he gives me a piece of paper, no, not paper it wasn’t, it was human skin dried like parchment, and on the paper was the writing, “The Child with the Golden Face shall bring the Clock to its Rightful Place”. Inside that piece of paper, that skin of paper, and wrapped up like swaddling babes, were two pictures belonging with the clock, and one was a road, and one was a child.
‘Well, I paid no attention to his fearful voodoo, but when our ship comes to port, a man be waiting for me on the dockside. Round-faced he be, and in a woollen cloak, and he offers me on the spot two hundred pound for the clock. Nay, says I, I be taking the clock to my right master, John Harrison.
‘As I made journey up country, back to Yorkshire, I sees one following me, and following me, and following me as close as my own shadow but without speaking. I manages to give him the slip, one wild and lost night, and I finds myself at a great house in Cheshire, and it was there, to save myself and the clock, that I begged the master of that house to hold the clock for safekeeping, promising I would return with my own master as quick as one moon’s passing.
‘I never did return. The man following me was Abel Darkwater, and he caught me, and, with his men, had me slapped in Bedlam, for theft of a clock, he said, and many a night he had me read drawings for him, and explain how such a clock as he desired could be made.
‘I could have told him where the clock was hidden but something prevented me. I cannot even say what prevented me, for many a time I would have told him and been set free, and yet when I opened my mouth to speak, I swear honestly that I could not remember where I had taken it, and I swear honestly to this day that when you said the word, my tongue was loosed for the first time in all these hundred hundred years and more.’
‘What word?’ said Silver.
‘Tanglewreck,’ said Micah. ‘Thine own house be the place.’
Silver was very silent for a moment, then she burst out, ‘But the Timekeeper isn’t there any more. Nobody knows where it is!’
‘It must be found,’ said Micah. ‘The time has come. It must be found.’
‘But I don’t know where to look!’ Silver was beginning to cry with frustration.
‘Have you no clue, child? No clue whatever it be? Think with all thy might!’
Silver thought. But whenever she thought about the Timekeeper she could not imagine it at all. It was as though someone threw a cover over it, just as she was about to speak. But there was something …
‘I found a pin – I forgot that bit – it was in the coal dust. It was shiny and pointy and …’ And as she described the pin, Micah closed his eyes and began to describe it too.
‘… gold, three inches long, diamond-covered, with an emerald at the top and the bottom. Child, that is no pin nor jewel, it be the first hand of the Timekeeper!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Have I not seen it with mine own eyes and told it to you truly just now?’
He had. Silver’s face fell. ‘But I left it in Abel Darkwater’s house. It’s in my duffle-coat pocket in the house!’
‘We must haste there!’ said Micah. ‘He shall not have it!’
‘But I can’t go there again. He’ll capture me and put me in a cage!’
‘We will journey with thee, and enter with thee.’
‘But –’
‘Not as Updwellers do. There be a way. Come! Hurry! Make ready! Balthazar! Gabriel! The Petrol Ponies!’
The four of them set off through the Chamber, where most of the Throwbacks were now asleep on pallets covered in animal skins and blankets.
Silver was expecting another long walk through mud and water and disused tunnels, so imagine her surprise when Micah opened a door into a dry, warm, concrete vault, to reveal three neat lines of motorbikes.
‘Petrol Ponies,’ said Micah proudly. ‘Built in your world in your years 1930s.’
‘Where did you get them from?’ asked Silver, touching the soft polished leather seats and bright chrome lights.
‘Your world keeps not its possessions. When I be an Updweller, more than two hundred and fifty years ago, a man kept to him the same spoon and dish and coat and chair all his life. His boots wore out, his horse wore out, but whatever did not wear out, he kept to him. For a long time now, Updwellers have thrown away what they have so that they can have new things. I do not understand the wicked waste, but I have profited from it. These Petrol Ponies were saved by us and restored by us. They be called Enfields.’
‘I thought I could smell petrol,’ said Silver.
‘That be here,’ pointed Micah. ‘Above us now is a place where Updwellers take their wagons and carriages. There be plenty of petrol. Now come, ride behind me.’
Micah pulled out the biggest of the Enfields, and Silver climbed on to the seat behind him. She had never seen a motorbike like this; instead of one long seat, it had two saddles, like old-fashioned bicycle saddles, resting on heavy coiled springs.
Micah steadied the bike upright with one short sturdy leg, and brought his other foot down hard on the kick-start. The bike roared to life, the headbeam lit up the tunnel ahead, and suddenly they were off, at what felt like breakneck speed, tearing through passages sometimes so narrow that Silver had to squeeze in her elbows to stop them scraping the walls.
The low roar of the bikes was amplified by the stone and brick. Silver wanted to cover her ears, but she was frightened to let go of Micah, in case she fell off.
‘Why do you call them Petrol Ponies?’ yelled Silver to Micah. ‘We call them motorbikes.’
‘Yea,’ said Micah, ‘but the Throwbacks have no use for your bicycles, with motors or without motors. We have always used ponies. When we first came here, one of our number brought bog ponies from Ireland, for they are small and light and can work underground. Then we found these Enfields, and we called them Petrol Ponies. You have one name for them, we have another. You have one world, we have another.’
He braked so hard that Silver nearly tumbled off. The bikes behind had to swerve and screech to avoid a collision. Micah switched off his engine. Now everything was dark and silent again.
‘Listen,’ said Micah. Silver strained her ears but she could hear nothing. Micah turned to Balthazar. ‘Do you hear it, brother?’
‘Yea.’
‘What?’ whispered Silver, twisting round to talk to Gabriel.
‘Ticking,’ said Gabriel.
‘We be beneath the house of Abel Darkwater,’ said Micah.
Micah signalled to Balthazar to stoop so that he could stand on his shoulders. He balanced cleanly as a monkey, and worked with his square spade hands to free a rusty metal plate in the roof of the vaulted tunnel.
He pushed it to one side, and swung himself up, motioning for Silver to be passed up through the opening.
She found herself in the little courtyard behind the shop.
As Balthazar was pulling himself through in turn, Micah warned Silver not to speak until he gave her permission. ‘Throwbacks neither read nor write, they were not learned in Bedlam, though I be one who can read. In that place we learned each other to speak wi
thout words, so that our cruel Warders did not hear us. I will read Balthazar’s mind, and he mine.’
‘What about me?’ asked Silver, who had never been good at guessing games.
‘You must be quiet. We risk much to come here. Gabriel will wait for us, and bring us help, should we be catched like rabbits by him that is a living snare.’
Micah moved silently over to the door that led into the shop and tried the handle. It opened. He frowned. He feared a trap. As he felt this fear, Silver saw a picture of a metal mantrap in her mind – the kind they used to hide in the woods to catch poachers, even though it tore off their legs. For the first time, she noticed that Micah had a limp. She shivered.
Now they were all in the shop and creeping past the watchful clocks out into the hall where Silver had made her escape. She suddenly wondered how much time had passed since then, and realised she had no idea whether it was hours or days.
The house was eerily silent. Micah led the way up the broad stairs and when they arrived at the first landing, Silver tugged at his sleeve. She wanted to warn him that this was Abel Darkwater’s study, so she thought it in her mind as fiercely as she could, and Micah nodded.
They crept past, and now they were on the second landing, where Mrs Rokabye slept. Silver paused at the closed door. Mrs Rokabye always snored, but there was no sound from her room.
They passed on, up to the set of rooms on the top floor where Silver had eaten and slept. Both of the doors from the landing were open.
Micah went inside, first one room and then the other. There was no one there.
The bed was neatly made up. Silver’s case was open on a chair where she had left it, her old duffle coat hung over the back.
She ran forward and grabbed the coat and turned the pockets inside out. Nothing! She scrabbled down on her hands and knees under the chair; nothing! She wriggled on her tummy under the bed; nothing!
Micah and Balthazar exchanged glances, then went to work searching the room. Silver knew the pin had been in her pocket. She knew that someone had taken it. Sniveller? Abel Darkwater? Not Mrs Rokabye, she was too stupid to know anything …
She put on her duffle coat, stuffing her trainers into her pockets. She left the case of clean clothes. Somehow they didn’t seem to matter any more.
Softly, the three of them retraced their steps downstairs towards Mrs Rokabye’s room. Impulsively, and before Micah could grab her arm as he read her thoughts, Silver opened the door.
The room was empty. Mrs Rokabye’s latest Murder Mystery and her pink earmuffs were on the bed, but she was not.
Micah and Balthazar glanced at each other uneasily. They would have to search the whole house, and that included Abel Darkwater’s study. If he had found the pin, he would certainly have taken it there to examine it.
The first floor of the house had three interconnecting rooms that Darkwater used as a bedroom, sitting room and study. Silver motioned to the Throwbacks to open the door into the bedroom and begin that way. No one wanted to go straight into the study.
Abel Darkwater’s four-poster bed was tidy and not slept in. Quietly, they opened the cupboards filled with clothes, and Silver noticed that his clothes were not from one century or one time, but a jumble of breeches, frock-coats, top hats and tweed suits, like a dressing-up box or costumes for a play.
In the sitting room were the remains of a meal on the table, and a candle that had recently burned out, spilling wax on the cloth.
Now they were outside the study door. It was a panelled door covered over with green baize, like the kind on a snooker table, and the green baize was held on the door with shiny brass tacks that caught the firelight and the candlelight and reflected your face like tiny distorting mirrors. Silver looked at herself and her new-found friends, and they all listened to the absolute silence.
There was nothing else to do; they had to open the study door.
Silver heard Micah breathe in as he stepped forward and walked firmly into the room.
Then she heard a low cry like a whipped animal.
Abel Darkwater was waiting for them.
‘You have not found what you were looking for, I think,’ he said to Micah, without smiling. ‘I sympathise. I am in the same sorry situation myself.’
Silver rushed into the room, forgetting what she had been told about keeping quiet.
‘You don’t know what we were looking for!’
‘Ah well, that tells me you were looking for something!’
Silver fell silent, caught in her own trap. Abel Darkwater smiled at her. ‘I wonder what it was?’
‘I’ll never tell you anything! Not ever never!’
She stepped forward, brave and defiant. Abel Darkwater raised his hand to slap her. Micah stepped in between the two of them. Darkwater looked surprised, and then angry.
‘So, John Harrison’s man, as you used to be known, would you stand against your Master?’
‘Thee be neither my Master nor my Better,’ said Micah.
‘Wretch, have you forgotten who ruled over you? Have you forgotten this?’
Abel Darkwater turned to one of his cabinets and took out what looked like a short leather truncheon. Silver saw Micah wince. Darkwater laughed.
‘Have you forgotten this already?’ With a sudden swing, Darkwater hit Micah on the side of his head. Blood spurted out on the carpet as Micah fell on to his knees. Silver dived at Abel Darkwater, who grabbed her wrist. She bit him. He pushed her away, nursing his hand.
‘Foolish child! None of you can stand against me. I will bide my time, oh yes, for I have more of it than you, Silver. You will lead me to the Timekeeper, whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not.’
Micah stood up unsteadily, mopping his face. He said to Abel Darkwater, ‘Be she the Child with the Golden Face?’
‘Ha ha ha, ha ha ha,’ laughed Abel Darkwater, ‘so you remember a thing or two after all, do you? Well, I will tell you as much as you will tell me: nothing! Now, go back to your filthy underground bog, and take the child with you. You will spare me the expense of feeding her.’
Micah and Balthazar did not speak. They shuffled out of the door and down the stairs as though they had been broken by something heavy and evil. Silver followed them, not knowing what she should do. Abel Darkwater stood at the top of the stairs watching them go.
She turned round. ‘Where is Mrs Rokabye?
‘Mrs Rokabye is at the theatre. She has gone to see The Lion King. Sniveller has taken her. She quite grew to like Sniveller when she discovered he is a poisoner by profession. You remember Sniveller, don’t you, Micah – although you knew him as the White Lead Man in those days?’
Micah did not reply.
‘Doesn’t she care about me at all?’ asked Silver, who knew Mrs Rokabye was bad, but had held out a faint hope that she was not all bad.
‘Of course she does,’ said Abel Darkwater cheerfully. ‘We all do, very much, but it would have been a pity to waste the tickets.’
He turned and went back into his study and closed the door.
As soon as the three of them were back down in the tunnel, Gabriel, waiting for them patiently, could see that things had gone very badly, but he did not break the oath of silence. They rode back on the Petrol Ponies, and parked them without speaking.
Only when he was back in the warm circle of the Chamber, with a bottle of something strong-smelling to drink, did Micah speak.
‘Certain it is that he has not discovered that pin, that hand of the clock.’
‘Then where is it?’ demanded Silver.
‘That I know not,’ said Micah.
‘But what can we do now? Shall we go back to Tanglewreck?’
‘I know not,’ said Micah. ‘I must dwell on this awhile, but there is something I know.’ He paused to light his pipe. ‘Someone else has knowledge of the Timekeeper. Someone who thy mother and father and sister met with on the day you tell us of, the day they were journeying to Abel Darkwater.’
‘How do you know?
’ asked Silver.
‘They vanished, yea. The Timekeeper vanished, yea. The one man who has sought it for centuries has lost it once more. Someone else must be nearby.’
‘But who?’ wondered Silver.
The Committee
Regalia Mason liked to be early to meetings; it was an interesting way of making others feel uncomfortable. If the most important person in the room is early, even those who are on time feel as though they are late.
It amused Regalia Mason to manipulate someone’s idea of Time in these small ways. Soon she intended to be manipulating Time in much bigger ways too.
She was reading through the notes supplied by the Committee. Since the first Time Tornado had hit London Bridge and the school bus had disappeared, there had been a number of other incidents, and in all of them the pattern seemed to be the same; Time stood still, then jerked forward at terrific speed. There had been seven sightings of a Woolly Mammoth on the banks of the Thames, and yesterday, as well as the disappearance of several buildings and cars and people, certain artefacts from the past had been found in the street.
She made a note on her pad. ‘Time is coming forward, coming towards us. We are not going back in Time.’
The advisors were coming into the room. She knew some of them; the Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees. The Cambridge Professor of Cosmology, Stephen Hawking; the quantum physicist, Roger Penrose; the neuroscientist, Susan Greenfield, always elegant in her short skirts and long boots – Regalia Mason made a note of the boots. Then there were two members of the Government, and a senior civil servant everyone knew as Sir Bertie. A last-minute addition was a man from MI5, whose name was a secret, and who suspected that the whole thing had something to do with the Chinese.
There was the usual rustling of papers and clattering of coffee cups and eyeing up of the biscuits that went on at important meetings, and even though the world might be coming to an end, the men still chatted about their golf and their children.