Imperial Clock (The Steam Clock Legacy) (15 page)

“
It was a gamble, aye.”

“
Yes.” And one a part of her wished she hadn’t made. Sonja had rushed into the fray without thinking twice, had risked her life to protect Father personally—what
she,
Meredith,
should have done. But her answer had been to enlist the help of others first, to leave Father alone and unwarned rather than put herself at risk. God help her, she was yellow to the bone, a bloody disgrace to the McEwan name and to Mother’s legacy. Utterly shamed by her younger sibling’s courage.

One more thing they no longer had in common.

“But it saved the day in the end. I dare say it was the wisest choice. And you, Mr. Elgin, that was a brave show. A damn brave show. How old are you again? Eighteen?”

“
Seventeen, sir.”

“
Fine lad. Wish I had a hundred like you.”

“
Thank you.” William tried to suppress his beaming pride with a manly frown but it didn’t wash. He was as pleased as punch, and even solicited an encore from Meredith—such a preening tilt of the head she’d never seen—so she obliged.

“
You were splendid. We’re very much in your debt,” she said.

“
Wasn’t nothing,” he muttered to himself, preferring his Lancashire brogue over his affected Queen’s today. Strange lad. Sweeter than she’d realised, with his newfound pride and his rural humility vying for supremacy.

“
I have one more concern, Miss McEwan.” Baxter leaned back in his chair until his double chin became a treble one, and he laced his fingers on the bulging belly of his waistcoat. “More of a precaution really. With your Father set to leave England right away—”

“
Yes, he fears for the safety of his expedition should he remain here any longer.”

“
Indeed. But what will become of you and your sister?”

“
Well, Father has wired Aunt Lily, so she will be back home in two days.”

“
And for security’s sake, you’re satisfied with that arrangement? Bearing in mind the rise in kidnapping and ransom cases these past few years—rather alarming figures, if I’m being honest. After what happened today, my advice is to hire yourselves a professional chaperon, a live-in protector. I can recommend one or two, if you’d like?”

“
That would be very kind.”

“
And for tonight?”

William
cleared his throat. “That’s me and Simeon. We’ll be accompanying Miss McEwan and her sister back to Southsea while their father stays on in London. The next airship to Portsmouth isn’t until the morning, which won’t do, so Professor McEwan has hired a buggy for Simeon to drive us through the night.”

“
Oh?” It was the first Meredith had heard of
that
.

“
Shall we?” The boy perched on the edge of his seat, waiting for her to get up. She did, somewhat flustered, the day’s dramatic events catching up with her through a sudden, hot brain shower that left her prickly and tired.

“
Thank you for your concern,” William said as he leaned over the desk to shake Baxter’s hand, his accent now proper, overdone.

“
My pleasure, lad. Take care of them now, and yourself.”

“
Much obliged, Inspector. Good day to you.” Meredith gave a polite bow, then levered the door open with the tip of her parasol.

“
Good day to you, miss. And good luck.”

Hmm...luck. The one thing in precious short supply of late. First
Niflheim, then Sonja’s Lake District ordeal, now this: forces natural and unnatural had clearly fixed their eyes on the McEwan family.

What secrets were they trying to protect?

A choking blanket of London smog lay over the flat, empty acres of the area formerly known as Whitehall and Westminster. Jagged ends of copper
piping, all that was left of the buildings’ plumbing, pierced clumps of weeds dotted here and there, while the derelict remains of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, collapsed to a height of about twenty feet for safety, were a sad reminder of the splendid monuments they’d once been, and of the horrific tragedy surrounding their devastation.

Meredith had only been ten at the time, an utterly
precocious ten if she were honest. News of the sudden disappearance of this three-quarter-mile heart of British heritage had excited her and Sonja something rotten, mainly because of the implications for what it had made possible in the world. For future science and, well, magical things in general. Because someone, somewhere had at last figured out the secret of large-scale time travel, and things would never be the same again.

The six oversized wheels of their hired buggy pottered over the co
bbles parallel to the Thames. It was the only vehicle anywhere around—the hour was late, yes, but even during the day few people ventured near Hell’s Foyer, as it had been dubbed by an indignant archbishop after he claimed to have seen phantom beasts and ghostly human figures wandering the site. Others had made similar claims. Not terribly well-supported claims, mind, but who knew what was possible if a huge slice of London could be transplanted a hundred million years into the past.

It wasn
’t until they passed the only building left standing in the Foyer, Reardon’s factory—the heart of the time jump phenomenon—that William began wrestling with his collar. He couldn’t be hot, though, as it was chilly inside the buggy; Meredith, Sonja and their driver, Simeon, were muffled to the gills.

“
What is it?” She switched seats to be next to him. Poor lad was whiter than a sheet.

“
Everything all right, William?” Simeon called back, having seen him in his rear-view. “If I was you, I wouldn’t even look.”

“
Just...hurry along will you, Tan—I mean Simeon.” William thumped a fist against the panel under his window,
whumping
the metal. “God, I should be over this by now.”

“
It’s been a while since you’ve been so close, lad. I’m a little jittery myself.”

“
Wait a minute. You two—” In Sonja’s darting gaze, a theory. A rifling theory. Behind her pursed lips, words that were dying to form, the same words on the tip of Meredith’s tongue. “You were about to call him Tangeni, weren’t you?”

Meredith clicked her finger. “
Yes, just like you did that night in Niflheim. The name seemed familiar at the time, but now—”

“
Then falling queasy opposite Reardon’s factory like this,” Sonja took over the reasoning, to Meredith’s delight—they were clearly on the same wavelength this evening, “and you’re seventeen, exactly the right age for the boy who returned from prehistory. Agnes Polperro identified a young lad named Billy Ransdell in her official testimony, said he and several African aeronauts survived the return time jump with her, but they must have fled London because no trace was found.”

William
stared at the floor.

“
It
is
him. The dinosaur boy.” Meredith and Sonja shook hands, congratulated each other on their historic deduction.

“
And Tangeni, first officer of the
Empress Matilda
,” Sonja observed as she hopped up to kneel on the seat and peer into the driver’s cabin. “Did you know they wrote an entire series of adventure books based on you and Captain Verity Champlain?
The Lady Skyhawk Chronicles.
I’ve got ‘em all. Tell me, what was she like?”

After a sharp glance
in his rear-view, Tangeni opened the secondary steam valve for acceleration, producing a heavy sloshing sound in the engine belly behind the carriage, followed by several splitting hisses from the exhausts high on either side of the roof. “Your father warned us not to tell you too much. He said you were incorrigibly curious.” He snatched his flat cap off his head and slammed it onto the empty passenger seat. His fuzzy greying hair was close-cropped at the back and sides but quite thick on top, as if the barber hadn’t finished. “But I clearly won’t get a moment’s peace, will I?”

“
Not a nanosecond’s. Not until you spill everything, Mr. Early Cretaceous Aeronaut.” Sonja reached in and tried to ruffle his unrufflable hair. “Eww...woolly.”

He laughed and slowly shook his head. “
McEwans.”

“
So where does Father fit in with all this?” Meredith asked. “He arranged to meet you at the Steam Fair—why?”

“
We’ve been helping to organise his expedition. My contacts in Africa and your father’s contacts here in England prefer to keep their correspondence away from, how shall we say it, certain intercepting parties.”

“
You mean the Leviacrum.” Sonja tapped her fingers on his seatback, then rolled her eyes at the ensuing silence. “Tangeni, our father dug up Subterranea. McEwans don’t exactly use a bucket and spade to unearth secrets. Do us a favour, please don’t be patronizing.”

He scratched
his beard. “Understand there’s only so much we’re allowed to say, miss.”

“
Hmm, put it this way—” Sonja
was
in rare uncompromising form this evening, “—whatever you omit, we’ll only inquire about later, and maybe the wrong people will get to know we’re asking the right questions, and
that—
that will be on your heads, Billy Ransdell and Tangeni. I doubt Father would look too favourably on you should that happen. Besides, besides...” She winked at Meredith, “Father told us more than you think.”

“
Yes, a darn sight more.”

Tangeni made an irritable
sucking noise behind his overabundance of clenched ivory teeth.

“
So for starters, it would behove you to tell us who the ringleader was today. The comatose peeping tom we clocked in Niflheim. What in God’s name was he doing in London when you nincompoops were supposed to warn us if he woke up. Well?” Sonja had a good point.

“
Name’s Westerfeld, a mercenary. Used to be a war correspondent, Asian-Pacific mostly.” Though he was slouched sulkily against the side of the carriage, almost prone, William managed to keep one eye on Meredith. She liked that. It gave him an air of mystery, not that she knew who the deuce he was any more. “Apparently someone smuggled him out of hospital weeks ago, and threatened the staff into silence. We only found out he’d left Norway today when you two recognised him. Professor Sorensen confirmed it by telephone when we were at the police station. So yes, we’re fighting an unseen enemy right now—whoever hired this bastard. Your dad was right to clear out when he did, to keep on the move. Once he starts his tunnelling, there’ll be no one can touch him for the next year or so.”

“
Well, well, look who’s a regular Wilkie Collins.” Sonja’s attempt to regain control of the conversation. A little too on the nose.

“
And look who’s patronizing who now,” he replied.

Smiling, she slid down off her knees and switched to the seat opposite him. “
Dinosaur Boy, give us your dinosaur tale.”

He groaned.
“Which one?”

“
How about...” She paused while Meredith took her own seat, “you start from the beginning. The only version of the story we’ve heard is that vile Agnes Polperro’s.”

“
The Gorgon.”

“
Uh-huh. And we’d love to hear what really happened in prehistory. Garrett Embrey, Verity Champlain, Professor Reardon, the diving bell, the miraculous spider. What was this book you had with you, that made you think of the Cretaceous in the first place?”

“
Tangeni?” William sat up as he asked for permission.

A long pause
, followed by a longer sigh from the driver’s cabin. “If you must.”

“
All right then. You asked for it, both of you.” He glanced sideways, soliciting a reaction from Meredith. Not forthcoming. Not until he stopped hinting at his part in all this and said something of note. “Well, it were sheeting down that September night, nineteen oh eight, and my dad was driving us across Westminster Bridge...”

In
frank, exhaustive detail he described his extraordinary adventure in the Cretaceous: the different dinosaur species they’d encountered; his burgeoning friendships with Tangeni, Embrey and particularly Professor Reardon; the senseless squabbling within the group of survivors, leading to violent mutiny; the desperate countdown to Reardon’s gambled return time jump; William’s guilt at having manifested the Cretaceous through his own panicked mind, a bizarre side-effect of human time travel, and also at having to leave Embrey and Verity behind. So vivid were his recollections that Meredith scarcely drew breath the entire time, and when they finally sighted the Ferris Wheel on Southsea’s Clarence Pier, moments before the conclusion of the tale, Tangeni had stopped to re-fill the water boiler and re-stoke the engine on at least five occasions during the course of the journey.

“
Amazing.” Sonja pressed the toe of her shoe to his knee, perhaps to flirt a little, perhaps to make sure he was real. “And now I see where our stories intersect.”