A Symphony of Echoes (21 page)

‘Because Davey Sussman and John Maxwell – they don’t matter. They’re not important. But you – you were supposed to be different. You were the centre of my world. I adored you and you hurt me, Leon Farrell. You hurt me more than anyone in my entire life. You taught me to love you and trust you and when my last barrier went down, you just killed me. You worse than killed me. I wish you’d killed me so I didn’t have to be alive and feel this pain every moment for the rest of my life.’

I stood stock-still and listened to words which should never have been spoken reverberate around the room. Neither of us moved. Neither of us knew what to do next. We listened to the rain outside for quite a long time.

He dropped his arms and let me go.

‘So,’ he said heavily, ‘where do we go from here, Max? What now? Is there any way we can make this right again?’

I found a voice. ‘I don’t think there’s any way this can be salvaged. I think the best thing to do now is draw a line underneath it and move on.’

From the way his shoulders slumped, I could see he had misunderstood me, so I added, ‘Together. Perhaps, somehow, we could start again. Maybe we could do it better next time.’

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘Yes, that would be good. Perhaps, in a day or so, after David’s service?’

I nodded, and because he looked so – broken – I touched his forearm gently before I left the room.

Chapter Fifteen

David’s service was very simple. Everyone attended. The Boss spoke. Outside, afterwards, I looked at all the headstones. I saw Kevin Grant, my fellow trainee who died on his first assignment. Tom Baverstock, who died on the floor of his own pod. Just their names, we never did dates. Their stones were beginning to weather. David was in front of Big Dave Murdoch and Jamie Cameron, who both died at Alexandria. It occurred to me I knew nearly as many people dead in the churchyard as I did living at St Mary’s. Peterson glanced at me, and I could see he was thinking the same thing.

The next day we got on with things again. Slowly at first, but with my office door open I could hear the increasing buzz in the hall downstairs.

It was very quiet in my office. I was not looking at the empty desk by the door.

I was dealing with my post – one of the many things David had done for me when Mrs Partridge marched in. She had ‘new assistant’ written all over her. I wasn’t sure I wanted another one.

‘Good morning, Dr Maxwell.’

‘Good morning, Mrs Partridge. What can the History Department do for you today?’

‘Well, as you’ve guessed, I’m here about your new assistant.’

I interrupted. ‘I’m not sure …’

‘Please hear me out.’ She was unstoppable. I really should know that by now. I put down my letter-opener lest I became tempted to use it and sat back to listen to her sales pitch this time.

‘There are busy times ahead as I’m sure you’re aware, and I’ve given careful consideration to your needs. You need someone efficient, dedicated, effective, organised, adaptable to a changing workload, personable, and amenable. After a lot of thought, I’ve allocated you Miss Lee.’

I sat forward abruptly. I needed efficient, dedicated, organised, adaptable, amenable, whatever, and she saddled me with Rosie Lee? She was rude, unhelpful, stubborn, and argumentative – the list just went on. I strongly suspected Mrs Partridge of taking the opportunity to dump an unpopular member of staff on me.

I had a vague memory of Miss Lee – small, dark, and vicious. I needed to think fast.

‘What about …?’ I said, cunningly. ‘What about Miss Lee going to work for Peterson? Everyone likes Peterson – even she will, and I’ll have his Mrs Shaw instead.’

This was a brilliant move. Mrs Shaw was lovely – and she brought him biscuits. Mrs Shaw I could live with. ‘I’m sure Miss Lee would benefit from being Peterson’s assistant.’

She looked at me pityingly.

‘Actually, Dr Maxwell, I’m giving you Miss Lee for your benefit – not hers.’

I wasn’t sure how that would work at all.

‘Thank you,’ I said sarcastically, but it just bounced off her.

Deliberately misinterpreting me, she inclined her head, smiled smugly, said, ‘You’re welcome,’ and departed. I’d lost another one. The score so far, Partridge 33 – Maxwell 0.

I sighed and began to sort through the chaos that was my in-tray. A small sound in the doorway made me look up. It was Medusa, dark hair curling around her head like so many snakes, giving me the evil eye. She had no little cardboard box full of plants, photos, personal possessions – just herself. She was neatly dressed but there was a quiet shabbiness about her. Her hair hadn’t been styled in months. She lifted a chin and radiated defiance. We stared at each other.

I remembered this was the girl whom nobody wanted. Shunted from department to department, lasting no longer than the initial month’s trial. No wonder she hadn’t brought anything with her – she wasn’t expecting to stay. She stood in the doorway, attitude oozing from every pore. I wondered if I was her last chance.

I kicked what I had been going to say into touch and said instead, ‘Miss Lee, you are very welcome. I’m glad to see you. Your desk is over here. Perhaps you’d like to take some time to have a look around the office and get your bearings. I believe Mr Sands was a methodical worker – it should all be quite straightforward. When you’ve got yourself sorted out, please could you look through my in-tray? I’d like you to prioritise this lot: stuff I need to do now, stuff that can wait, and stuff I can pass on to other people. I’ll leave you in peace, now. I’m down in the hall if you want me.’

Not bad, eh? I was impressed. She wasn’t. She stared long enough for me to register that entering the room was her choice and nothing to do with me in any way whatsoever and crossed to the desk.

‘There’s no chair.’

‘Well, there wouldn’t be, would there? David was in a wheelchair. He brought his own,’ was what I hadn’t meant to say. God, she did have a real knack for rubbing people up the wrong way. ‘Give Mr Strong a call and he’ll bring one up for you,’ and left the room before she ended up wearing the filing cabinet.

Mrs Partridge was pretending not to lurk near the stairs.

‘The body’s under the desk,’ I said as I passed, just to give her something to worry about.

Down in the hall, I ran into Peterson.

‘I was just coming to find you,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy a trip out?’           

‘Maybe … What did you have in mind?’

‘Pathfinders,’ he said. ‘They’ve completed their last simulation. Time for the real deal. Would you care to join us?’

The Pathfinders are recently qualified trainees. They do what it says on the tin. They find the path. Sometimes, when we’re not sure of our dates, they don’t so much jump as hop, looking for the event in question, narrowing down the co-ordinates until we find what we’re looking for. They also maintain the Time Map. They don’t usually get involved in the more lively aspects of the job until they have a bit of experience under their belt.

I pushed thoughts of my Mary Stuart-covered desk to the back of my mind. ‘Anywhere in particular?’

‘Yes, actually. Do you remember, when we were at the other St Mary’s, we couldn’t find The Hanging Gardens of Babylon?’

‘No one’s ever found them. Or any trace of them.’

‘I think everyone’s been looking in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s very strong evidence they may have actually been The Hanging Gardens of Nineveh. Fancy checking it out?’

‘Yes,’ I said, enthusiastic at the opportunity. And even more enthusiastic at the thought of leaving my emotionally tangled life behind me for a while, and enjoying something as simple and straightforward as running for my life while being pursued by a blood-crazed mob, or succumbing to some deadly plague in the dim and distant past.

We assembled in Hawking, outside Number Three. Peterson in his role as trainer and mentor; Messrs Hopwood and Dewar and Miss Prentiss on their final training jump. And me. Ostensibly along to help supervise, but, in reality, just running away.

Peterson and I made ourselves scarce in the corner as they laid in their carefully calculated co-ordinates and, under Dieter’s watchful eye, carried out their pre-flight checks. I smoothed the folds in my tunic and arranged my shawl over my headdress. Eventually they were finished.

Dieter withdrew.

Peterson said, ‘In your own time, lady and gentlemen,’ and the world went white.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Hopwood, unprofessionally, and I had to agree. Nineveh in 680BC was – mind blowing.

We stood quietly under a small tree, just inside the Mashki Gate on the north-west side of the city, and tried to take it all in. The last king, Sennacherib, had extensively remodelled Nineveh, laying out new, wide streets and squares, and building ‘The Palace Without Rival’. He’d brought water to the city by building canals and aqueducts. He’d planted gardens and erected hundreds of statues. I was looking at a giant man-bull a few yards away and it was looking right back at me.

Nineveh was a huge city – about seven hundred and fifty hectares – and built on a scale to match. The gates – all fifteen of them – were colossal. The stone and mud brick walls were sixty feet high and fifty feet thick. And as if that wasn’t enough to deter invaders, stone towers had been cut into the walls every sixty feet or so.

Inside the walls, the city was dominated by the royal palace. Built for Sennacherib’s beloved wife, Tashmetu-sharrat, it soared above the city.

We’d been standing for about ten minutes or so and, as far as I could see, no one was paying us the slightest attention. As usual, we didn’t quite blend in, but Nineveh straddled the important trade routes of the time, so the streets were already full of other strange-looking folk who spoke funny.

This part of the assignment was under Mr Hopwood’s control.

‘This way,’ he said, confidently. ‘Miss Prentiss and Dr Maxwell, if you would be kind enough to bring up the rear, please.’

This was a polite way of saying, ‘Women at the back where you belong?’ Still, at least they hadn’t brought anything heavy for us to carry. In ancient times – and modern, now I come to think of it – it’s always women who do the heavy lifting.

We set off for the palace. Even I could have found it. Sennacherib had been a fully paid up member of the ‘in your face’ school of architecture. Built of huge white limestone blocks, it dazzled in the hot sunshine. A pair of magnificent copper lions guarded the main entrance. I saw terraces, pillars, and walkways, all heavily planted and cascading with running water. You could have been forgiven for thinking that here, indeed, were the famous hanging gardens, but you would have been wrong. Because the gardens were next door, connected to the palace by a canal and a royal avenue.

I caught my breath. We all caught our breath. The Hanging Gardens of Nineveh were beautiful. A green jewel in a dusty desert. Built in concentric squares, the largest, the outer square, was laid out as a public park. I could see small groves of trees. Shady paths invited further exploration. Entrance, to this part at least, seemed to be open to all.

Inside this park was a wide, lily-covered, square moat and inside this, another, smaller square park, more thickly planted and obviously private. But the centrepiece was the huge, three-storey ziggurat towering above its surroundings. Each terrace was lush and beautiful, landscaped with statues and planted with ornamental bushes, trees and the hanging foliage that gave the gardens their name. The summit was crowned with a copse of full-grown trees. Water cascaded wastefully from one terrace down to another, making the statement –
We
are Nineveh and we are rich and powerful and we can afford to chuck it around.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Mr Hopwood again. Again, no one argued.

‘Right,’ said Mr Dewar, pulling us all together. Historians do tend to get lost in the moment. On some assignments we really could do with a couple of well-trained sheepdogs and a cattle prod.

His was the next part of the mission. We’d all been allocated tasks. He made us check our com links – he was going by the book – and we all scattered. Peterson and I, who knew as much about horticulture as the average politician knew about effective and efficient government, were allocated the north side of the park.

We walked slowly, not drawing attention to ourselves – we hoped. The park was full of families enjoying a respite from the late afternoon sun. Heatproof children ran around, shouting. Water sellers lined the paths. Stone benches invited rest under the shady trees and everywhere was the sound of running water.

‘I want to see how they get the water up there,’ said Tim, gazing up at the ziggurat. ‘Sennacherib – never unduly modest about his achievements – claimed to have used something that sounds suspiciously like the Archimedes screw – four centuries before Archimedes got round to inventing it.’

‘Interesting. Lead on.’

The sun was far too hot to move quickly, so we strolled along happily, politely stepping aside with a smile whenever we encountered anyone else. It was easily the most peaceful assignment I’d ever had.

Miss Prentiss spoke in my ear.

‘Dr Peterson. We have a problem.’

Tim sighed.

‘Go ahead.’

‘Mr Hopwood’s been bitten. By a scorpion.’

‘Did you see it? How big?’

Believe it or not, the smaller they are, the more dangerous they can be. So if you are ever bitten by one the size of a small truck, you should be fine. Size matters. Never mind whether it’s women, chocolate, or scorpions – big is always beautiful.

‘Smallish. But that’s not the problem. He seems to be having some sort of allergic reaction.’

‘Symptoms?’

‘Rising temperature. Erratic pulse. Tingling in his extremities.’ There was a pause and an unpleasant noise. ‘And severe vomiting.’

‘Where are you?’

‘The three of us are already in the pod.’

‘Get him back at once. You can return for us later. We’re right at the northern end and it would take us a good twenty minutes to get to you. Go now.’

‘Sir, are you sure?’

‘Yes. Medevac. Get him out now. My authorisation.’

‘Yes, sir. We’ll be back as soon as we can.’

‘No rush. Take your time.’

In the background, I could hear the computer counting down. ‘… Three, two, one …’

And they were gone.

‘Well,’ said Tim, briskly, to cover the sudden feelings of unease we were both experiencing at being left here with no means of getting back. ‘Shall we continue?’

I’d never actually been left behind before. With no means of escape should I need one. On the other hand …

I looked around. Lush green growth rioted all around us. Beautiful birds flitted from tree to tree. I could hear gently trickling water somewhere to my left. A path twisted enticingly deeper into the gardens. A peacock called. The whole scene breathed peace and serenity. When you consider our usual setting was some bloody battlefield, or rat-filled slum, or viewing a spectacular but hazardous natural catastrophe, it could have been a lot worse. We were in a garden. What could go wrong?

We ambled slowly around the park, pausing every now and then to admire a particular flower, peer into the dark depths of an ornamental pool, or just inhale the cool, green, garden fragrance. Occasionally, through the trees, we caught glimpses of the giant central ziggurat with its green crown.

We still had no way of knowing whether these were
the
hanging gardens, but if they weren’t, then Babylon was really going to have to get its green wellies on to go one better than this.