Page 78 of Right Place, Right Time
‘But how did he know you’d be turning up at the records place at that exact time if he’d been waiting for a long time for this?’
Barney smiles. ‘Now this is the really clever part. He’d got one of his grandchildren to put some sort of tracker on Archie’s name on the database so that if someone started looking him up suddenly, Ernie would get an alert and know to go to where the paper records are kept – and that’s exactly what happened when I was checking the database before work this morning. I couldn’t get out to the shed until this afternoon because of work, so goodness knows how long he’d been waiting there for someone to appear.’
‘And Ernie definitely thought this timekeeper was in Clockmaker Court?’ I ask, trying to clarify everything in my own head.
‘He was adamant about it.’
‘So,’ I say, looking at Adam again. ‘No biggie. If it’s not to do with the pub, all we need to do is discover which of our neighbours here might be otherwise known as the timekeeper.’
26
Barney joins us at the pub that evening, after we’ve filled him in on everything else that’s going on.
Adam quietly pulls me aside before I tell Barney, reminding me what my grandmother’s letter says about only telling people I fully trust. But I quickly reassure him that I 100 per cent trust Barney. He’s already been there with us when we’ve made many of our discoveries, and he’s been super helpful, so he deserves to know everything.
We hope at the pub we might be able to surreptitiously question our fellow shopkeepers while they are having a drink and discover who might be the infamous timekeeper. But instead our questions are expertly evaded at every turn. So we leave the pub even more confused than before, and decide to go back to Adam’s flat to try to make sense of everything.
To my surprise, Barney declines the offer.
‘Oh, God, it’s the stairs, isn’t it?’ I say, suddenly realising, and I’m annoyed with myself for not considering Barney before deciding to go to Adam’s.
‘It might be a factor,’ Barney says in his usual matter-of-fact way.
‘Then we’ll go somewhere else,’ I say. But my house also has the main living area upstairs, so that won’t be any better. We’ve just come from the pub and that’s far too busy tonight to discuss the kinds of things we need to.
‘Really, it’s fine.’ Barney shrugs. ‘I’m used to it.’
‘No, it’s not fine!’ I say crossly. ‘You’re as much a part of this as we are now. I want to hear your take on everything. It’s not fair if you miss out.’
‘I don’t know if this is the right thing to suggest,’ Adam says quietly. ‘But I can carry you up the stairs, Barney, if that would help. Or would that be totally condescending and wrong?’
I close my eyes, fearing what Barney might say. But I’m surprised to hear him respond favourably. ‘On this occasion, Adam, that would be great, thanks.’
So I watch as Adam carries Barney – who isn’t a particularly large young man, but still must weigh plenty – effortlessly up the stairs to his flat, where he places him carefully on the sofa.
‘Cheers, Adam,’ Barney says, arranging himself more comfortably. ‘That was good of you.’
‘No problem, mate. You’re no heavier than some of the equipment I used to lug around in my touring days.’ Adam winks at Barney and then nips downstairs again to lift Barney’s wheelchair up the stairs too.
‘You can at least be independent up here,’ Adam says, putting the chair next to Barney. ‘Cos there ain’t no way I’m carrying you to the toilet, fella!’
Barney laughs and I breathe a sigh of relief as the atmosphere in the room relaxes.
‘Did you notice how they all evaded our questions tonight?’ I say to them both, when Adam has got us all a bottle of beer and we’re sitting in the lounge waitingfor yet another takeaway to be delivered. I feel like I’m living on takeaways right now, but there always seems to be something going on that prevents me from eating my usual healthy-ish meals. Maybe one day Adam and I might be able to go out to dinner in a restaurant, just the two of us, and talk about the sort of things that normal couples did – but then, when was it any fun to be normal?
‘I did notice that,’ Adam says. ‘Do you think that was deliberate? Or were we reading things into it that weren’t really there?’
‘Difficult to say?’ Barney says. ‘But we did the right thing by pressing them. How else are we going to find this timekeeper?’
‘I actually thought at one point they might be questioning us?’ Adam says. ‘Or was that just me.’
‘No, I thought that too,’ I say. ‘But why would they do that?’
‘How about we go through everyone one by one,’ Adam says. ‘See if we can rule anybody out of the equation.’
‘Worth a go, I suppose.’
‘So we definitely think the timekeeper is someone who lives here in Clockmaker Court?’ Adam asks.
