Frozen in Time (15 page)

‘Percy, will you give us your word that what you are about to see you will not speak of—to anybody?’ asked Uncle Jerome.

Percy shrugged. ‘Nobody listens to an old codger like me anyway. Why would I bother?’

‘But you were a policeman—a detective inspector!’ said Ben, and the old man smiled and nodded sadly.

‘
Was
a detective inspector,’ he said. ‘Just another old codger now. You’ll see, lad—in another sixty years … you’ll see.’

Percy struggled a bit with the rungs down into the shaft, but his daily walks up the hill had kept him reasonably fit for a man nearing eighty and he made it to the Ampex room in one piece, staring in amazement around the time capsule sitting room as he passed through.

They discovered that Uncle Jerome had carefully attached another length of blank oxide tape to the first lot, making it easier to weave the film back onto the spools and move it back and forth while he scrutinized the grainy image of the young man with the stone in his shoe and the black car’s arrival. Percy leant on the front of the huge video machine and peered at the tiny screen above it intently. He chuckled and shook his head as he watched himself, fifty-three years younger, walk by, stop to sort out his shoe, and then walk on again.

‘And you don’t remember seeing anyone here, while you did that?’ prompted Uncle Jerome.

‘No, it was just normal. The front door was open a bit, I remember that much. Someone had been cooking; I could smell lunch. Made me feel a bit peckish. Of course, I only remember this now because a week later I was making a statement about it—and then getting everyone else’s statements too. For what they were worth—which was nothing.’

Now the black car rolled into view, on the last few images. Everyone waited while Percy looked at it, screwing up his eyes and tilting his head—trying to read the number on the registration plate.

‘A 5 3—that’s all I could make out—after hours of trying,’ sighed Uncle Jerome. ‘What do you think? Is it a car you recognize?’ Percy was straightening up again now, and frowning. ‘Is it? What do you think, Percy?’

‘I don’t need to see the number, Jerome. I know what car that is,’ he said. He stepped away from the Ampex, shaking his head. ‘Better give it up now, unless you want a whole lot of trouble.’

‘What? What does that mean?’ demanded Freddy.

‘It means you’re not ever going to find out what you want to know, young man, that’s what it means. That car came along for a purpose. It didn’t just happen by. And if I’d remembered seeing it on the day, chances are
I
wouldn’t ever have happened by again.’

They all stood, staring at him, waiting for him to make sense. Percy regarded them all gravely. ‘It’s a government car.’

Freddy shook his head. ‘But—but Father
worked
for the government! So that’s probably why they came to see him. He worked for them.’

‘Did they ever come by before, lad?’

Freddy swallowed and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Never.’

‘I thought not,’ said Percy. ‘I saw that car—or one like it—a few times in my career. Whenever it drove through, misfortune and confusion weren’t far behind. It was a Clean Up car—that’s what we used to call it back then. Whatever happened here to your dad, it was cleaned up. That’s why we kept turning up nothing but dead ends on our investigation, I’ll warrant. Somebody at the top sent in the Clean Up car.’

Ben felt a chill creep into him. ‘But—surely not his own government …? The people he’d been working for …?’

‘Ah well—our government, someone else’s government … much the same thing back then,’ said Percy. ‘You have to understand, lad, it was very bad times in the world. Nobody trusted anybody. Spies were going east and spies were going west and terrible weapons were being made so we could all kill each other much more efficiently. Professor Emerson knew a lot of people and a lot of people knew him. Moving in his world, you could find yourself connected to some very bad people and not even know it. And look—here it is—he
did
have something to hide, didn’t he?’

Percy looked around him and back through the open door to the sitting room. ‘Reckon it’s about time you showed me the rest, don’t you?’

Uncle Jerome took Percy on a tour while the rest of them sank onto the dusty chairs and sofa in the sitting room, trying to absorb what the old man had told them.

‘He always did say they weren’t to be trusted,’ muttered Freddy. ‘But he said that about
everyone
! I never thought they might … they might …’

‘Well, we don’t know, do we? It’s no good worrying about it—we just have to keep trying to find out. Emersons don’t give up,’ said Polly. As she’d promised Rachel, there was no more ‘blubbing’.

‘It’s why he didn’t tell them about our sleeping chambers,’ went on Freddy. ‘He didn’t trust them not to do something terrible while testing them.’

Ben and Rachel exchanged glances. It seemed to them that Freddy and Polly’s father had done something pretty terrible himself while testing them. They didn’t say so.

‘Did the government have
any
idea what he was doing here?’ asked Ben, at length.

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Freddy. ‘He was working on all kinds of things up in London—and cryonics was just one of them, but I think it just involved insects and rodents and so on. It didn’t work well in the labs up there. The rats used to bleed afterwards and sometimes lose their claws and teeth. They’d go blind too—and then die. Horrible. They stopped the research after a while—said it would never work, but Father didn’t agree. He always felt sure he could crack it—and he did. He found a different method and the rats survived. But he wanted to test it thoroughly before he let anyone know, so he started working on it here instead. I don’t think they knew—or had any idea of how much further he’d taken it. He froze himself, first. He had to show us how to put him in the chamber and then get him out again. That was jolly scary, but we soon got used to it. The problem was, he needed to be taking notes, too, so he needed someone else to go in. So we volunteered.’

Percy re-emerged in the sitting room, looking stunned. ‘Say what you like about him,’ he said, patting Freddy’s shoulder as he passed, Uncle Jerome close behind him, ‘but your father was a genius. No mistake. A genius.’

Freddy sprang to his feet before Percy could move on to the door to the shaft.

‘Your word! I need your word!’

Percy held out his hand, which was trembling slightly, and looked Freddy straight in the eye. ‘I give you my word I won’t speak to anyone else about what I’ve seen today.’ Freddy nodded gravely and shook his hand. ‘But I will try to find out more about that car— and look back through my old case notes. See if there’s something I missed which could help. And there’s also the thirty year rule now.’

‘The thirty year rule? What’s that?’ asked Freddy.

‘Well, in theory, government secrets get opened up after thirty years have passed. It’s the law … or supposed to be. Of course, some of them get made right back into secrets as soon as they’re uncovered. A judge extends the rule for up to a hundred years sometimes. But that could be something you could look into, Jerome … with your connections. If there was a cover-up in 1956, they might be ready to uncover it again now. Especially thinking there’s nobody left to care.’

Uncle Jerome nodded. ‘Yes, I think I should. Discreetly, of course. I know one or two people who might be able to help. I have a good friend in Whitehall … he can be trusted.’

‘Thank you,’ said Freddy, to Percy. ‘Thank you very much.’

After tea that night—macaroni cheese from the freezer which both Freddy and Polly thought was awful—they listened to the radio, which Freddy and Polly also thought was awful. Ben had taken care to tune to Radio 2, to be kind, but Polly was still shocked rigid by the rude jokes of the presenter and the words in the songs. ‘Why do they want us to keep shaking our ass?’ she queried, dismayed. ‘That would be cruel. I hate cruelty to animals.’

Ben and Rachel tried to explain, but the truth was even more shocking to poor Polly.

They got to bed early, exhausted, intrigued, and worried by the talk of government clean up men. Freddy was quiet and Ben could tell this was on his mind.

‘We could go into town tomorrow, if you think you’re ready for it—do some research at the library,’ Ben offered, hoping to cheer the boy up. ‘They keep all the newspapers in the vaults from way back—we can follow all the stuff that was written about your dad, and see if there are any more clues. Maybe find out if Mrs Minstead knew anything …? She might still be alive?’

‘I doubt it … she was pretty ancient even fifty years ago,’ said Freddy. He sighed and dropped his head respectfully. ‘But yes … into town. That would be whizzer,’ he added, lying back in the lower bunk. Just as Ben was about to reach over and switch off the lamp there was an urgent thud on the door and Polly and Rachel almost fell into the room. Ben and Freddy shot up in bed when they saw their faces. Both girls looked white and scared.

Polly held Bessie and whimpered, ‘Freddy—oh, Freddy, look!’ She turned the puppy’s furry brown snout around and pulled her handkerchief away from it.

On the hanky was a blurry rose of blood.

‘Bleeding first, then teeth and nails … blindness, then …’ Freddy stared down at his hands, which were wringing the bedclothes into a tight bunch. ‘But look—she could just have scratched her nose with her claws. Puppies have very sharp claws, don’t they? It doesn’t mean what happened to the rats is happening to her or … or …’

‘Or
will
happen to us,’ said Polly. She hugged Bessie to her and peered down at the puppy’s wrinkled brown muzzle. She dabbed at it again and they all stared at the hanky. ‘Doesn’t seem to be any more blood now, at any rate,’ said Polly. ‘And we never had this happen before, did we, Freddy?’

‘We didn’t stay frozen for fifty-three years before,’ pointed out her brother.

‘We should go to Uncle J,’ said Rachel. ‘We should.’

‘No,’ said Freddy. ‘It’s just a scratch, you’ll see! Father sorted out the problem which killed the rats, I tell you. We’re not going to panic about nothing. I mean—yes—if we all wake up tomorrow with our noses gushing like Niagara Falls, fair enough—but right now I feel fine, don’t you, Polly?’

‘Yes, I’m quite all right,’ said Polly. ‘I think you’re right—it’s just a scratch. Sorry I was such a goose about it. Let’s all get some sleep. We can plan what to do next to find Father in the morning.’

Rachel was impressed. She was seriously frightened by the bleeding and the awful thought of what could happen to Polly and Freddy—and Polly must surely be terrified. But the girl was now getting up with a smile and tucking Bessie back into her arms.

‘Good plan,’ Freddy was saying. ‘Let’s get some decent kip. Tomorrow we can shake our gravy asses into town and do some sleuthing.’

‘I knew the radio was a bad idea,’ sighed Ben, pulling his pillow over his head.

‘Sorry, you really can’t wear those.’ Rachel firmly removed the little pink grips from either side of Polly’s dark wavy hair.

‘But they keep me neat!’ protested Polly.

‘Or
that.
’ Rachel surveyed the pale yellow pinafore dress that her great-aunt wore.

‘But this is one of my best dresses! You always ought to try to look decent when you go into town!’

‘Polly, you look like a six year old! Nobody over seven wears that kind of stuff in 2009! Nobody! You’ll have to borrow some of my stuff. Look, these will fit you.’ She rummaged in her wardrobe and pulled out a pair of newish blue jeans, with a chain of silver stars threaded through the belt loops, and a pale blue T-shirt. Polly stared at them in awe, and then sighed and shrugged out of her pinafore dress.

When they reached the hallway, Freddy was also dressed twenty-first century style, in a pair of Ben’s jeans and a white T-shirt. ‘Not bad, eh, Polly? Really rather gravy, I reckon!’

‘
Groovy
,’ corrected Ben, with a sigh. ‘Or cool. Cool is better.’

‘I say—you look jolly nice, too, Poll.’

Polly smiled, slightly doubtfully, but she did look great in Rachel’s gear. Much less little-girlish. ‘I like these,’ she murmured, playing with the little silver stars on a chain around her waist. ‘But what
have
you done to your hair?’

‘Wax!’ grinned Freddy, whose neat parting had now been messed up. ‘Isn’t it ghastly? Ben says it’s “cool” though. Which means good. I think.’