36 #2
I rush forward, fling open the two doors and a dishevelled-looking Adam stumbles towards me. Immediately I fling my arms around him.
‘Adam! Oh, my God, I thought you might be gone for ever.’
‘You don’t know me very well,’ Adam says, stepping out of the tunnel, ‘if you thought I’d let that ever happen.’
Adam is wearing exactly what Luca described as missing from his shop.
Unlike Ben, who returned to his past looking like a character from a Charles Dickens novel, Adam looks more like an extra from the television series Peaky Blinders – even though that is set a tad later than the era he’s just come from.
We continue to embrace for a few blissful moments more.
‘I see you found my letter,’ Adam says, noticing it lying on the desk.
‘Yes, what the hell were you thinking of?’ I say, releasing him as my relief is rapidly replaced by anger.
‘You were going to do the same,’ he says, removing his cap and sitting down at the desk. ‘Don’t tell me you weren’t?’
‘Perhaps. I hadn’t actually decided.’
Adam looks reprovingly at me, then he grins. ‘You can’t hide it from me. I know you, remember?’
Suddenly, I realise how exhausted he looks, as well as dishevelled. ‘Forget that now. What happened to you? I assume you went back to 1904? Was everything OK? Are you OK? You look really tired. What about Ben and Dotty – did you find them? Are they all right?’
‘Whoa, steady. One question at a time.’
‘Sorry.’ I pull up the other chair in the office and sit down next to him. ‘Tell me everything.’
Adam takes my hand in his and immediately I fear the worst.
‘I didn’t find Ben,’ he says, sounding utterly dejected. ‘I tried – believe me, I tried. I searched and searched, and I asked so many people. A couple of them had actually seen a man matching the description I gave them, but they didn’t know where I could find him.’
‘Oh, please don’t worry,’ I say, putting my hand over his now.
‘At least we know he probably got back there all right if people have seen him. I can’t imagine there would be too many people matching his description walking around Cambridge back then – he cut quite the striking figure in his outfit when he left. ’
‘However … I did locate his mother,’ Adam says, some sparkle returning to his eyes. ‘And I spoke to her.’
‘Gosh, did you? What did she say?’ I ask eagerly. ‘Had she seen him too?’
‘Kind of. I mean, I know it was Ben from what Eliza – that’s Ben’s mother’s name – told me, but I don’t think she knew it was him.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I think Ben must have gone back to 1904 before Dotty rescued him. Because when I went to visit Eliza, she told me a well-dressed man had come to her house asking about her son just over a week ago – which she thought was odd. She asked what did he want with her son? But the man wouldn’t say.
He simply told her not to worry and her son was absolutely fine.
But he insisted on leaving her money – more money than she’d ever seen in her life.
Eliza was suspicious at first and thought there might be a catch.
But when nothing happened and the man didn’t return for his money, she decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
There’s enough money, she told me, for her and her son to move out of the slum they are living in and to rent a little cottage on the outskirts of the city.
They were moving out the next day – I only just caught her. ’
‘So our Ben went back early so he could give his mother money before the young Ben went missing?’ I say, trying to follow this.
‘Yes, it appears so. That’s if young Ben actually did disappear this time?’
‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’
‘Ben told us he was pickpocketing back in 1904 to keep both him and his mother from going into the workhouse, didn’t he?’
‘Yes …’ I say, not understanding where Adam is going with this.
‘What if, by giving his mother money before the day he was rescued by Dotty and ended up in 1944, the young Ben was able to stop what he was doing, because they both now had plenty of money to live on?’
I stare at Adam as what he’s suggesting begins to make sense.
‘So he never got chased by the men?’ I ask, slowly piecing this together.
Adam nods. ‘And he never ended up here in Clockmaker Court.’
‘But how can that be? We know he did?’
‘In that version of events, yes. But there’s a theory of time travel that says by travelling in time you can create new alternative timelines that branch off the main timeline and run simultaneously alongside the others.’
I frown at Adam, trying to understand. ‘When did you become such an expert on time-travel theories?’
‘I’ve been doing some reading,’ Adam says. ‘I didn’t want us to take on the responsibility of the time portal without knowing exactly what we were taking on.’
I smile at him.
‘What?’ he asks.
‘You’re so amazing,’ I tell him proudly. ‘Not only did you face your fears and go into a dark, enclosed space so you could go through the portal for me, but you’ve taken all this time-travel stuff in your stride and now you’re doing homework too! I love you so much for that.’
Adam grins. ‘I’m pleased to hear it. You know I love you too – very much.’
He leans forward and kisses me.
‘As much as I hate to stop you when you’re kissing me like that,’ I say, smiling at him as I reluctantly pull away. ‘But this time-travel theory – the different timelines one. Is it like branches on a tree? They all come from the same trunk, but branch off to be very different?’
‘That’s it exactly. Ben’s origin story started the same, but it may have branched into two different versions at the point in time Ben gave Eliza the money.’
‘He’s a sly old fox,’ I say, smiling as I think about this. ‘He told me not to mess with time, and there he is, creating new timelines for the better.’
‘If that’s what actually happened – it’s only a theory.’ Adam shrugs. ‘I guess we’ll never truly know.’
‘But at least we know Ben was able to see his mother and make sure she was OK. Above all else, he wanted to make sure his mother was taken care of. Now he can live out his final years in peace.’
Adam nods. ‘And hopefully you can find some peace too knowing that.’
‘And Dotty?’ I ask, feeling bad for doing so. Adam has already done so much for me in finding this information about Ben. But I want so much to know what happened to her too.
Adam shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t find out anything about her. I tried – really I did. I may have only been gone for a few hours this end, but I spent days in 1904 Cambridge asking questions and searching – but nothing. No one knew anything.’
‘It’s fine,’ I say brightly, attempting to conceal my disappointment. ‘You did really well finding all that out about Ben. I’m so grateful to you.’
‘But you really wanted to know about Dotty, didn’t you?’
‘I wanted to know about both of them,’ I say. ‘Obviously, I never knew Dotty like I knew Ben. But after what we discovered about her earlier in the year, I feel a real connection to her. I want to know she was all right too.’
‘I understand,’ Adam says. ‘I did try, but—’ He stops abruptly. ‘Did you just hear that? That knocking sound?’
‘Yes, I thought I heard something, but it sounded a bit muffled. I thought it might be coming from outside in the court.’
We both listen again, and again we hear knocking.
‘Is that coming from the tunnel?’ I look questioningly at Adam.
‘I think it is,’ he says. ‘But it’s not these doors someone’s knocking on.’ He gestures to the doors with the tree on them. ‘It sounds like it might be at the other end.’
We stare at each other, neither one of us knowing what to do.
‘Should we go and find out?’ I ask.
‘I guess we’d better,’ Adam says. ‘Come on.’
We walk warily together down the dark tunnel towards the exterior doors that we know lead out onto the alleyway at the back of Clockmaker Court.
We stop when we get to the closed doors. Adam removes the planks of wood, then he takes my hand.
‘Ready?’ he asks, reaching for the handle with his other hand.
I whisper back, ‘Ready.’
Adam turns the door handle at the same time as the person the other side decides to knock again, and we both nearly jump out of our skins.
The door swings open and the person on the other side simply stares at the two of us, standing there open-mouthed, then she smiles.
‘Are you Adam and Eve, by any chance?’ she asks in a rounded, polite voice, as though we’re being formally introduced.
I open my mouth a couple of times, unable to speak. And then, in only a whisper, I reply.
‘Are you … Dotty ?’