Page 105 of Right Place, Right Time
‘Promise me?’
‘OK. I promise I won’t do anythingsilly.’
Going back in time is never silly. It is only ever going to be deadly serious.
36
The next morning, I awake to an empty bed next to me.
Nothing strange in that. Even when Adam stays the night, he will often get up earlier than me to give himself time to go for a run before work and then take a shower, or sometimes he has to be at the bookshop early to receive a delivery. So I don’t think too much about getting up alone and getting ready for the day ahead.
As I go downstairs to the kitchen, I’m still thinking about what we discussed last night. We didn’t say anything more about the possibility of me using the portal to check on Ben. It didn’t seem necessary to continue discussing it. I knew Adam’s stance wouldn’t change. In his opinion, it was just too dangerous for me to go back there – and that was the end of it.
But Adam should know me better than that. Once I decide to do something, no one is going to stop me, especially not my boyfriend.
I planned today, if the shop was quiet, to figure out a way I could go back without him knowing.I might have to get Barney onside to help me, I think as I shower and get dressed for work.
Time is getting on when I’m finally ready to leave the house.
I’ll grab a coffee on the way to the shop. Maybe even a couple of Chelsea buns too, to keep Adam sweet. But I’ll take some fruit with me to keep it a bit healthier.
I open up my fridge, meaning to grab a banana and a pear, but I stop dead as I see what’s sitting on the shelf in front of me – a large red apple.
‘How the hell did that get there?’ I say, still staring at the apple. For some reason, I’ve completely gone off apples recently, after both eating and drinking quite a lot of them at the beginning of the year, so now I never buy them.
Maybe Adam put it there, is the only explanation I can think of. But it still seems strange. Adam didn’t have any apples with him when he came back to mine last night. So why would he go out and buy one this morning, then leave it in my fridge.
The apples thing was very odd. It was almost like I couldn’t get enough of them, or products that contained them, for a while, and I began to wonder if maybe I had a vitamin deficiency. Then, as quick as anything, around the time that Adam and I got together, I went completely the opposite way and now actually feel quite queasy at the thought of eating one. So much so that Barney had teased me mercifully for a while, with jokes about the Adam-and-Eve effect, forbidden fruit, the Garden of Eden, and suchlike.
But now, as I enter Clockmaker Court with my coffee and buns, all thoughts of apples – good and bad – are forgotten. Because something doesn’t feel right.
Unusually, a few of the shopkeepers are standing outside their shops.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask Luca as I approach the group, consisting of him, Orla, Barney and Harriet.
‘A couple of us had a break-in last night,’ Luca says. ‘Well, I say break-in – no one actually forced entry, but things were taken.’
‘What things?’
‘I had some clothes taken, and Barney some money.’
‘Oh, no!’ I turn to Barney. ‘How much?’
‘It wasn’t my actual takings,’ Barney says. ‘I mean, it wasn’t modern money. It was some of Ben’s old notes that he’d left with me. I haven’t got round to selling them on yet, so they were tucked out the back in a box.’
‘That’s odd. How did they know they were there? And they didn’t take any of your stock or anything else?’
Barney shakes his head. ‘Not that I can see.’
‘The things they took from my shop were a bit odd too,’ Luca says. ‘Nothing particularly valuable, like my jewellery. It was a few bits from my rails.’
‘What sort of bits?’
‘Er, from what I can see, a tweed suit, a matching waistcoat, a white shirt, and a flat cap. I’m sure there must be more, but that’s all I’ve noticed.’
Oh, God.My stomach feels like it’s dropped down to my feet.He hasn’t, has he?
‘What sort of era are the clothes from?’ I ask Luca, as an uneasy feeling begins to settle inside me.
