“I can travel through time,” the murderer explained.
Ah, of course. PC Milo, the officer tasked with the interrogation, pondered if Roger Sheen had a brain tumour or was perhaps banking on an insanity plea.
Sheen had no history of violence or aggression, was an honours student at college as a matter of fact and hadn’t as far as anyone knew even met Luke Moore before.
Mam was in a jumpy phase. Carl had been hoping her new boyfriend would bring her some calmness. After all, Astro had been patient with him. He’d taught him songs, and school stuff like showing him how to remember his tables.
‘If you feel that way about me, you can go!’ Mam was saying. Her face was red, her eyes wild like that panicking horse he’d see on tv, and which he kept thinking about in bed when the light was off.
There were days when Mam seemed to be in a hurry like a racing car round a circuit. Other days she was quiet, didn’t want to go out, was touchy. She took medication to help her condition, but she was still a different person from one week to the next. Was her medicine worsening things? He worried about that sometimes.
Memories of the past ebb and flow around me like a fast-running stream. Here and there, I pick out snatches of melody, laughter or tears, heartache or guilt. Occasionally, small groups clump together in eddies, circling round, threatening to drag me into the whirlpool of emotion of a particular moment; a birth, a death, singing with joy until my voice is hoarse. I linger at each of these, but the need for closure presses me onward.
This is my personal Hall of Ancestors and, as I walk its length, portraits on the wall show each reincarnation; the twenty-first century social media star, the patent office clerk, the eighteenth-century Swiss craftsman. Here, a rural Italian mother garnishes a steaming pasta dish, and there a mediaeval herbalist offers a concoction of their own devising that claims to be a panacea for any illness from a sore throat to parasitic infections.
My heart races against the clock. As 17:59 becomes 18:00, it looks like the word ‘Boo.’ Mum says a swear-word and I jump. My swimming lesson starts now but we haven’t even parked the car.
On the radio, the newsreader says an asteroid will narrowly miss Earth tonight. I picture myself riding it, flames shooting behind me, and diving into the pool just in time.
Mum stops the car so suddenly that I jolt forward. ‘Jump out here, Thomas!’
My bag is wedged in the space in front of my seat. I tug while another clock inside my head counts down until Mum explodes. Beside me, she inflates like a balloon. Three, two, one…
Inspector Camden Ironbell glared through the taxi window. He sighed and stroked his long beard. It would have been quicker to walk, he thought. He turned to his sergeant, who had her head stuck in a magazine.
“What are you reading, Lightwarble?”
Umros Lightwarble held up the magazine so he could see the cover. “Scientific Gnomus.”
“I see.” He raised an eyebrow. In his opinion, young Gnomes spent far too much time on human science and not enough on old-fashioned magic. “And WHAT is the article about?”
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